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Dickens' Xonbon 



Uniform with this volume 

MILTON'S 
ENGLAND 

By 

Lucia Ames Mead 

i2mo, cloth^ illustrated 
$i.6o 

L. C. Page & Company 
Publishers, Boston 



-^f^^ 




^ottjot of " STfje CatJjrDrals of i^ortJjmt JFrance " 
WiX)^ manp ^Tllofiittatioiifii anH pianei 




CBojjton 
L. C* J^agt & Company 

MDCCCCIIII 



•i' 



.e^-^ 



THE LibRAHY OF 
CONGRESS. 

Twc Copies Keooivotf 

OCT 12 1903 

Cupyiigni t.ntty 

(Txt 11 — !^g^ 

CLASS '^ XXc. No 

COPY a. 



Copyright, igoj 
By L. C. Page & Company 

(incorporated) 
All rights reserved 



' -?ui)lished September, 1903 



CToIonfal l^xtsa 

Elertrotypod and Printed by C. H. Slmonds & Co. 

Boston, Mass., U. S. A. 



ri 



i 



AH sublunary things of death partake! 
What alteration does a ccnt'ry make! 
Kings and Comedians all are mortal found, 
CcBsar and Pinkethman are underground. 
What's not destroyed by time's devouring hand? 
Where's Troy, and where's the Maypole in the Strand? 
Pease, cabbages, and turnips once grew where 
Now stands New Bond Street and a newer square; 
Such piles of buildings now rise up and down, 
London itself seems going out of town. 

James Bramston, The Art of Politicks. 



The attempt is herein made to present in an informal man- 
ner such facts of historical, topographical, and literary mo- 
ment as surrounded the localities especially identified with 
the life and work of Charles Dickens in the city of London, 
with naturally a not infrequent reference to such scenes and 
incidents as he was wont to incorporate in the results of his 
literary labours; believing that there are a considerable num- 
ber of persons, travellers, lovers of Dickens, enthusiasts et 
als., who might be glad of a work which should present within 
a single pair of covers a resume of the facts concerning the 
subject m'atter indicated by the title of this book; to remind 
them in a way of what already exists to-day of the London 
Dickens knew, as well as of the changes which have taken 
place since the novelist's time. 

To all such, then, the present work is offered, not neces- 
sarily as the last word or even as an exhaustive resume, 
knowing full well the futility for any chronicler to attempt 
to do such a subject full justice within the confines of a 
moderate sized volume, where so many correlated facts of 
history and side lights of contemporary information are 
thrown upon the screen. The most that can be claimed is 
that every effort has been made to present a truthful, cor- 
rect, and not unduly sentimental account of the sights and 
scenes of London connected with the life of Charles 
Dickens. 



9!n pvai^t of HonDon 

"The inhabitants of St. James', notwithstanding they 
live under the same laws and speak the same language, are 
as a people distinct from those who live in the ' City.' " 

Addison. 

"If you wish to have a just notion of the magnitude 
of the City you must not be satisfied with its streets 
and squares, but must survey the innumerable little lanes 
and courts." Johnson. 

" I have often amused myself with thinking how different 
a place London is to different people." Boswell 

" I had rather be Countess of Puddle-Dock (in London) 
than Queen of Sussex." 

Shadwell. 

" London ... a place where next-door neighbours do 
not know one another." 

Fielding. 

"London . . . where all people under thirty find so 
much amusement." 

Gray. 

"Dull as London is in summer, there is always more 
company in it than in any other one place." 

Walpole. 

" London! Opulent, enlarged, and still — increasing 
London!" 

Cowper. 
"What is London?" 

Burke. 

" I began to study a map of London . . . the river is 
of no assistance to a stranger in finding his way." 

Southey. 



Contents 



PAGB 

Introduction ii 

The London Dickens Knew 20 

Dickens' Literary Life 47 

The Highway of Letters 60 

Dickens' Contemporaries . . . . '73 

The Locale of the Novels 99 

Disappearing London 119 

The County of Kent 139 

The River Thames 160 

Manners and Customs i8i 

Past and Present 211 

The Under World 236 

London Topography 246 

A Brief Chronology 287 

Index 289 



%i6t of IFUustratfons 



PAGR 



Charles Dickens Frontispiece ' 

No. 8 Craven Street, Strand. — Mrs. Tulking- 

horn's House 14 

•'The Sun," Newspaper 24 . 

Dickens' House in Devonshire Terrace. — No. 48 

Doughty Street, where Dickens Lived . 54 
The Reading of "The Chimes" at Forster's 

House, in Lincoln's Inn Fields . . -57 
Charles Dickens, His Wife, and Sister Georgina 87 
Dickens' Grave in Westminster Abbey . . 96 
Plan of "The Poets' Corner" . . • 97 , 
Entrance to " Adelphi Arches." — York Water ^ ., 

Gate S«©V 

Residence of John Forster, Lincoln's Inn Fields 105 v 

Southwark 112 

LiMEHousE Church 114 

The (Reputed) "Old Curiosity Shop" . . . 127 
Dickens' Study at Gad's Hill Place . . . 148 
Houses of Parliament, Westminster . . . 163 ■ 

Billingsgate 172 v 

London Bridge 176 ' 

The "Pool of London" 179 - 

"The Goose Club" 181 

"Going to the Pantomime" 193 

Smithfield Market 207 



Xist ot Ullustrattons 



Interior of St. Paul's Cathedral during the 

Duke of Wellington's Funeral . . .215 
Lord Mayor's Procession, Ascending Ludgate 

Hill 221 

Plan of the Houses of Parliament . . . 225 

" The City," London 246 

London at the Time of the Great Fire . .250 

The Wards of the City X^^JT 

The Duke of Wellington's Funeral Passing ^^ " 

Apsley House 258 

Whitechapel 281 



2)icfeen8' Xonbon 



INTRODUCTION 

rHIS book is for the lover of Dickens and 
of London, alike. The former without 
the memory of the latter would indeed be 
wanting, and likewise the reverse would be the case. 
London, its life and its stones, has ever been im- 
mortalized by authors and artists, but more than 
all else, the city has been a part of the very life and 
inspiration of those who have limned its virtues, 
its joys, and its sorrows, — from the days of blithe 
Dan Chaucer to those of the latest west-end society 
novelist. 

London, as has been truly said, is a " mighty 
mingling," and no one has breathed more than 
Dickens the spirit of its constantly shifting and 
glimmering world of passion and poverty. 

The typical Londoner of to-day — as in the early 
Victorian period of which Dickens mostly wrote 

II 



12 Dicftens' Xon^on 

— is a species quite apart from the resident of 
any other urban community throughout the world. 
Since the spell which is recorded as first having 
fallen upon the ear of Whittington, the sound of 
Bow Bells is the only true and harmonious ring 
which, to the ears of the real cockney, recalls all 
that is most loved in the gamut of his sentiments. 

It is perhaps not possible to arrange the contents 
of a book of the purport of this volume in true 
chronological, or even topographical, order. The 
first, because of the necessitous moving about, hither 
and then thither, — the second, because of the fact 
that the very aspect of the features of the city are 
constantly under a more or less rapid process of 
evolution, which is altering all things but the points 
of the compass and the relative position of St. Paul's 
and Westminster Abbey. Between these two guide- 
posts is a mighty maze of streets, ever changing as 
to its life and topography. 

Hungerford Market and Hungerford Stairs have 
disappeared, beside which was the blacking factory, 
wherein the novelist's first bitter experiences of 
London life were felt, — amid a wretchedness only 
too apparent, when one reads of the miserable days 
which fell upon the lad at this time, — the market 
itself being replaced by the huge Charing Cross 
Railway Station, in itself no architectural improve- 



2)tcftens' XonDon 13 

ment, it may be inferred, while the " crazy old 
houses and wharves " which fronted the river have 
likewise been dissipated by the march of improve- 
ment, which left in its wake the glorious, though 
little used, Victoria Embankment, one of the few 
really fine modern thoroughfares of a great city. 

Eastward again Furnival's Inn, where Pickwick 
was written, has fallen at the hands of the house- 
breaker. 

The office of the old Monthly Magazine is no 
more, its very doorway and letter-box — " wherein 
was dropped stealthily one night " the precious 
manuscript of " Pickwick " — being now in the 
possession of an ardent Dickens collector, having 
been removed from its former site in Johnson's 
Court in Fleet Street at the time the former edifice 
was pulled down. 

Across the river historic and sordid Marshalsea, 
where the elder Dickens was incarcerated for debt, 
has been dissipated in air; even its walls are not 
visible to-day, if they even exist, and a modem park 
— though it is mostly made up of flagstones — 
stands in its place as a moral, healthful, and politic 
force of the neighbourhood. 

With the scenes and localities identified with the 
plots and characters of the novels the same cleaning 
up process has gone on, one or another shrine 



14 2)tcften0' Xon&on 

being from time to time gutted, pulled to pieces, 
or removed. On the other hand, doubtless much 
that existed in the fancy, or real thought, of the 
author still remains, as the door-knocker of No. 
8 Craven Street, Strand, the conjectured original 
of which is described in the " Christmas Carol," 
which appeared to the luckless Scrooge as " not a 
knocker but Marley's face; " or the Spaniards Inn 
on Hampstead Heath described in the XLVI. Chap- 
ter of Pickwick, which stands to-day but little, if 
any, changed since that time. 

For the literary life of the day which is reflected 
by the mere memory of the names of such of 
Dickens' contemporaries in art and letters, as Mark 
Lemon, W. H. Wills, Wilkie Collins, Cruikshank, 
" Phiz," Forster Blanchard, Jerrold, Maclise, Fox, 
Dyce, and Stanfield, one can only resort to a history 
of mid or early Victorian literature to realize the 
same to the full. Such is not the scheme of this 
book, but that London, — the city, — its surround- 
ings, its lights and shadows, its topography, and its 
history, rather, is to be followed in a sequence of 
co-related events presented with as great a degree 
of cohesion and attractive arrangement as will be 
thought to be commensurate and pertinent to the 
subject. Formerly, when London was a " snug 
city," authors more readily confined their incomings 



Dicftens' Xon^on is 

and outgoings to a comparatively small area. To- 
day " the city " is a term only synonymous with a 
restricted region which gathers around the financial 
centre, while the cabalistic letters (meaning little 
or nothing to the stranger within the gates), E. C, 
safely comprehend a region which not only includes 
" the city," but extends as far westward as Temple 
Bar, and thus covers, if we except the lapping over 
into the streets leading from the Strand, practically 
the whole of the " Highway of Letters " of Doctor 
Johnson's time. 

A novelist to-day, and even so in Dickens' time, 
did not — nay could not — give birth to a character 
which could be truly said to represent the complex 
London type. The environment of the lower classes 
— the east end and the Boro' — is ever redolent 
of him, and he of it. The lower-middle or upper- 
lower class is best defined by that individual's pre- 
dilection for the "good old Strand; " while as the 
scale rises through the petty states of Suburbia to 
the luxuries of Mayfair or Belgravia, — or to define 
one locality more precisely, Park Lane, — we have 
all the ingredients with which the novelist constructs 
his stories, be they of the nether world, or the 
" hupper suckles." Few have there been who have 
essayed both. And now the suburbs are breeding 
their own school of novelists. Possibly it is the 



i6 H)icftens' Xon5on 

residents of those communities who demand a spe- 
cial brand of fiction, as they do of coals, paraffine, 
and boot-polish. 

At any rate the London that Dickens knew clung 
somewhat to Wordsworth's happy description writ- 
ten but a half century before: 

" Silent, bare, 
Ships, towers, domes, theatres, and temples lie, 
Open unto the fields and to the sky," 

whereas to-day, as some " New Zealander " from 
the back blocks has said : " These Londoners they 
never seen no sun.'' And thus it is that the scale 
runs from grave to gay, from poverty to purse full, 
and ever London, — the London of the past as well 
as the present, of Grub Street as well as Grosvenor 
Square. The centre of the world's literary activi- 
ties, where, if somewhat conventional as to the 
acceptation of the new idea in many of the marts 
of trade, it is ever prolific in the launching of some 
new thing in literary fashions. 

At least it is true that London still merits the 
eulogistic lines penned not many years gone by by 
a certain minor poet: 

•' Ah, London / London / Our delight, 
Great flower that opens but at night. 
Great city of the Midnight Sun, 
Whose day begins when day is doneP 



2)tcftens* Xon&on 17 

It is said of the industrious and ingenious Amer- 
ican that he demands to be " shown things," and 
if his cicerone is not sufficiently painstaking he will 
play the game after his own fashion, which usually 
results in his getting into all sorts of unheard-of 
places, and seeing and learning things which your 
native has never suspected to previously have ex- 
isted. All honour then to such an indefatigable 
species of the genus homo. 

Nothing has the peculiar charm of old houses 
for the seeker after knowledge. To see them, and 
to know them, is to know their environmait, — and 
so it is with London, — and then, and then only, 
can one say truly — in the words of Johnson — that 
they have " seen and are astonished." 

A great mass of the raw material from which 
English history is written is contained in parochial 
record books and registers, and if this were the 
only source available the fund o-f information con- 
cerning the particular section of mid-London with 
which Dickens was mostly identified — the parishes 
of St. Bride's, St. Mary's-le-Strand, St. Dunstan's, 
St. Clement's-Danes, and St. Giles — would furnish 
a well-nigh inexhaustible store of old-time lore. 
For a fact, however, the activities of the nineteenth 
century alone, to particularize an era, in the " High- 
way of Letters " and the contiguous streets lying 



i8 Dicftens' Xon&on 

round about, have formed the subject of many a 
big book quite by itself. When one comes to still 
further approximate a date the task is none the less 
formidable; hence it were hardly possible tO' more 
than limn herein a sort of fleeting itinerary among 
the sights and scenes which once existed, and point 
out where, if possible, are the differences that exist 
to-day. Doctor Johnson's " walk down Fleet 
Street " — if taken at the present day — would at 
least be productive of many surprises, whether pleas- 
ant ones or not the reader may adduce for himself, 
though doubtless the learned doctor would still chant 
the praises of the city — in that voice which we 
infer was none too melodious : 

•' Oh, in town let me live, then in town let me die^ 
For in truth I can't relish the country j not /." 

Within the last decade certain changes have taken 
place in this thoroughfare which might be expected 
to make it unrecognizable to those of a former gen- 
eration who may have known it well. Improve- 
ments for the better, or the worse, have rapidly 
taken place; until now there is, in truth, somewhat 
of an approach to a wide thoroughfare leading from 
Westminster to the city. But during the process 
something akin to a holocaust has taken place, to 
consider only the landmarks and shrines which have 



H)(cftens' Xon&on 19 

disappeared, — the last as these hnes are being 
written, being Clifford's Inn, — while Mrs. Tulking- 
horn's house in Lincoln's Inn Fields, redolent of 
Dickens and Forster, his biographer, is doomed, 
as also the Good Words offices in Wellington 
Street, where Dickens spent so much of his time in 
the later years of his life. The famous " Gaiety " 
is about to be pulled down, and the " old Globe " 
has already gone from this street of taverns, as well 
as of letters, or, as one picturesque writer has called 
it, " the nursing mother of English literature." 



THE LONDON DICKENS KNEW 

^^^^HE father of Charles Dickens was for a 
a time previous to the birth of the novelist 
a clerk in the Navy Pay Office, then in 
Somerset House, which stands hard by the present 
Waterloo Bridge, in the very heart of London, 
where Charles Dickens grew to manhood in later 
years. 

From this snug berth Dickens, senior, was trans- 
ferred to Portsmouth, where, at No. 387 Com- 
mercial Road, in Portsea, on the 7th February, 1812, 
Charles Dickens was born. 

Four years later the family removed to Chatham, 
near Rochester, and here the boy Charles received 
his first schooling. 

From Chatham the family again removed, this 

time to London, where the son, now having arrived 

at the age of eleven, became a part and parcel of 

that life which he afterward depicted so naturally 

and successfully in the novels. 

Here he met with the early struggles with grim 
20 



H)tcl?ens' Xonbon 21 

poverty and privation, — brought about by the vicis- 
situdes which befell the family, — which proved so 
good a school for his future career as a historian of 
the people. His was the one voice which spoke with 
authoritativeness, and aroused that interest in the 
nether world which up to that time had slumbered. 

The miseries of his early struggles with bread- 
winning in Warren's Blacking Factoi^y, — in asso^ 
elation with one Fagin, who afterward took on 
immortalization at the novelist's hands, — for a 
weekly wage of but six shillings per week, is an old 
and realistic fact which all biographers and most 
makers of guide-books have worn nearly threadbare. 

That the family were sore put in order to keep 
their home together, first in Camden Town and 
later in Gower Street, North, is only too apparent. 
The culmination came when the elder Dickens was 
thrown into Marshalsea Prison for debt, and the 
family removed thither, to Lant Street, near by, 
in order to be near the head of the family. 

This is a sufficiently harrowing sequence of events 
to allow it to be left to the biographers to deal with 
them to the full. Here the author glosses it over as 
a mere detail ; one of those indissoluble links which 
connects the name of Dickens with the life of Lon- 
don among the lower and middle classes during the 
Victorian era. 



22 2)icftens' Xonbon 

An incident in " David Copperfield," which Dick- 
ens has told us was real, so far as he himself was 
concerned, must have occurred about this period. 
The reference is to the visit to " Ye Olde Red Lion " 
at the corner of Derby Street, Parliament Street, 
near Westminster Bridge, which house has only 
recently disappeared. He has stated that it was an 
actual experience of his own childhood, and how, 
being such a little fellow, the landlord, instead of 
drawing the ale, called his wife, who gave the boy 
a motherly kiss. 

The incident as recounted in " David Copper- 
field " called also for a glass of ale, and reads not 
unlike : 

" I remember one hot* evening I went into the bar 
of a public-house, and said to the landlord : * What 
is your best — your very best ale a glass ? ' For it 
was a special occasion. I don't know what. It may 
have been my birthday. ' Twopence-halfpenny,' 
says the landlord, ' is the price of the Genuine Stun- 
ning Ale.' * Then,' says I, producing the money, 
* just draw me a glass of the Genuine Stunning, 
if you please, with a good head to it.' " 

After a time his father left the Navy Pay Office 
and entered journalism. The son was clerking, 
meanwhile, in a solicitor's office, — that of Edward 
Blackmore, — first in Lincoln's Inn, and subse- 



Dicftens* XonDon 23 

quently in Gray's Inn. A diary of the author was 
recently sold by auction, containing as its first entry, 
" 13^- 6d for one week's salary." Here Dickens ac- 
quired that proficiency in making mental memo- 
randa of his environment, and of the manners and 
customs of lawyers and their clerks, which after- 
ward found so vivid expression in " Pickwick." 

By this time the father's financial worries had 
ceased, or at least made for the better. He had 
entered the realms of journalism and became a Par- 
liamentary reporter, which it is to be presumed de- 
veloped a craving on the part of Charles for a sim- 
ilar occupation; when following in his father's 
footsteps, he succeeded, after having learned Gur- 
ney's system of shorthand, in obtaining an appoint- 
ment as a reporter in the press gallery of the House 
of Commons (the plans for the new Parliament 
buildings were just then taking shape), where he 
was afterward acknowledged as being one of the 
most skilful and accomplished shorthand reporters 
in the galleries of that unconventional, if deliberate, 
body, which even in those days, though often count- 
ing as members a group of leading statesmen, per- 
haps ranking above those of the present day, was 
ever a democratic though " faithful " parliamentary 
body. 

In 1834 the old Houses of Parliament were 



24 Bicftens' Xon&on 

burned, and with the remains of St. Stephen's Hall 
the new structure grew up according to the plan 
presented herein, which is taken from a contempo- 
rary print. 

At the end of the Parliamentary session of 1836 
Dickens closed his engagement in the Reporters' 
Gallery, a circumstance which he recounts thus in 
Copperfield, which may be presumed to be somewhat 
of autobiography: 

" I had been writing in the newspapers and else- 
where so prosperously that when my new success 
was achieved I considered myself reasonably en- 
titled to escape from the dreary debates. One joy- 
ful night, therefore, I noted down the music of the 
Parliamentary bagpipes for the last time, and I 
have never heard it since." (" David Copperfield," 
Chap. XLVIII.) 

Again, in the same work, the novelist gives us 
some account of the effort which he put into the pro- 
duction of " Pickwick." " I laboured hard " — 
said he — " at my book, without allowing it to in- 
terfere with the punctual discharge of my newspaper 
duties, and it came out and was very successful. 
I was not stunned by the praise which sounded in 
my ears, notwithstanding that I was keenly alive 
to it. For this reason I retained my modesty in 
very self-respect; and the more praise I got the 



^i)t ^^:5 



^ o b 



"5^1111 



^nl)f 




CHARLES DICKENS WAS PARLIAMENTARY RE- 
PORTER ON THIS PAPER. 



H)icf?ens' Xon^on 25 

more I tried to deserve." (" David Copperfield," 
Chap. XLVIII.) 

From this point onward in the career of Charles 
Dickens, he was well into the maelstrom of the life 
of letters with which he was in the future to be so 
gloriously identified; and from this point forward, 
also, the context of these pages is to be more allied 
with the personality (if one may be permitted to so 
use the word) of the environment which surrounded 
the life and works of the novelist, than with the 
details of that life itself. 

In reality, it was in 1833, when Dickens had just 
attained his majority, that he first made the plunge 
into the literary whirlpool. He himself has related 
how one evening at twilight he " had stealthily en- 
tered a dim court " (Johnson's Court, Fleet Street, 
not, as is popularly supposed, named for Doctor 
Johnson, though inhabited by him in 1766, from 
whence he removed in the same year to Bolt Court, 
still keeping to his beloved Fleet Street), and 
through an oaken doorway, with a yawning letter- 
box, there fell the MS. of a sketch entitled " A 
Dinner at Poplar Walk," afterward renamed " Mr. 
Minns and His Cousin." These were the offices 
of the old Monthly Magazine now defunct. Here 
the article duly appeared as one of the " Sketches 
by Boz." In the preface to an edition of " Pick- 



26 Dfcftens' XontJon 

wick," published in 1847, Dickens describes the 
incident sufficiently graphically for one to realize, 
to its fullest extent, with what pangs, and hopes, 
and fears his trembling hand deposited the first of 
the children of his brain; a foundling upon the 
doorstep where it is to be feared so many former 
and later orphans were, if not actually deserted, 
abandoned to their fate. 

These were parlous times in Grub Street ; in the 
days when the art of letters, though undeniably pro- 
lific, was not productive of an income which would 
assure even a practised hand freedom from care and 
want. Within a half-mile on either side of this 
blind alley leading off Fleet Street, from Ludgate 
Hill on the east — redolent of memories of the 
Fleet, its Prison, and its " Marriages " — to Somer- 
set House on the west, is that unknown land, 
that terra incognita, whereon so many ships of song 
are stranded, or what is more, lost to oblivion which 
is blacker than darkness itself. 

In January, 1837, while still turning out " Pick- 
wick " in monthly parts, Dickens was offered the 
editorship of the already famous Bentley's Mag- 
azine, which he accepted, and also undertook to 
write " Oliver Twist " for the same periodical. 

In March, of the same year, the three rooms at 
Fumival's Inn presumably having become crowded 



Bichens' XonC)on 27 

beyond comfort, he removed with his wife to his 
former lodgings at Chalk, where the couple had 
spent their honeymoon, and where in the following 
year their son Charles was born. 

What memories are conjured up of the past and, 
it is to be hoped, of future greatness by those who, 
in taking their walks abroad, find themselves within 
the confines of the parish of St. Bride's, with its 
church built by Wren shortly after the great fire, 
and its queer pointed steeple, like a series of super- 
imposed tabourets overtopped with a needle-like 
spire ? 

Here the brazen chimes ring out to all and sundry 
of the world of journalism and letters, whose voca- 
tions are carried on within its sound, the waking 
and sleeping hours alike. True ! there are no sleep- 
ing hours in Fleet Street; night is like unto day, 
and except for the absence of the omnibuses, and 
crowds of hurrying throngs of city men and solici- 
tors and barristers, the faces of those you meet at 
night are in no way unlike the same that are seen 
during the hours in which the sun is supposed to 
shine in London, but which — for at least five 
months of the year — mostly doesn't. 

Old St. Bride's, destroyed by the great fire of 
London in the seventeenth century, sheltered the 
remains of Sackville, who died in 1608, and the 



28 Bichens' Xon&on 

printer, Wynken de Worde, and of Lovelace ( 1658). 
To-day in the present structure the visitor may see 
the tomb of Richardson, the author of " Clarissa 
Harlow," who lived in Salisbury Square, another 
near-by centre of literary activity. In the adjacent 
churchyard formerly stood a house in which Milton 
for a time resided. In later times it has been mostly 
called to the minds of lion hunters as being the 
living of the Reverend E. C. Hawkins, the father 
of our most successful and famed epigrammatic 
novelist, — M!r. Anthony Hope Hawkins. 

Equally reminiscent, and linked with a literary 
past in that close binding and indissoluble fashion 
which is only found in the great world of London, 
are such place names as Bolt Court, where Johnson 
spent the last years of his life (1776-1784), Wine 
Office Court, in which is still situated the ancient 
hostelry, " The Cheshire Cheese," where all good 
Americans repair to sit, if possible, in the chair 
which was once graced (?) by the presence of the 
garrulous doctor, or to buy alleged pewter tankards, 
which it is confidently asserted are a modern 
" Brummagem " product " made to sell." Gough 
Square at the top of Wine Office Court is where 
Johnson conceived and completed his famous dic- 
tionary. Bouverie Street (is this, by the way, a 
corruption or a variant of the Dutch word Bouerie 



Dicftens' Xon&on 29 

which New Yorkers know so well?), across the 
way, leads toward the river where once the Car- 
melite friary (White Friars) formerly stood, and 
to a region which Scott has made famous in " Ni- 
gel " as " Alsatia." Fetter Lane, and Great and 
Little New Streets, leading therefrom, are musty 
with a literary or at least journalistic atmosphere. 
Here Izaak Walton, the gentle angler, lived while 
engaged in the vocation of hosier at the corner of 
Chancery Lane. 

At the corner of Bouverie Street are the Punch 
offices, to which mirthful publication Dickens made 
but one contribution, — and that was never pub- 
lished. Further adown the street is still the building 
which gave shelter to the famous dinners of the 
round-table when all the wits of Punch met and 
dined together, frequently during the London sea- 
son. 

In Mitre Court, until recently, stood the old tav- 
ern which had, in its palmier if not balmier days, 
been frequently the meeting-place of Johnson, Gold- 
smith, and Boswell ; while but a short distance away 
we are well within the confines of the Temple which 
not only sheltered and fostered the law, but litera- 
ture as well. 

An incident which shows Dickens' sympathy 
with the literary life of the day was in 1854, when 



3© 2)icftens' Xon^on 

the great-grandson of the man who has given so 
much to all ages of Englishmen, — De Foe, — was 
made happy with a relief of £2 a month, Dickens 
was (as might have been expected) amongst the 
most liberal subscribers to the little fund. If every- 
body who has derived delight from the perusal of 
" Robinson Crusoe " had but contributed a single 
farthing to his descendant, that descendant would 
become a wealthy man. When De Foe was asked 
what he knew of his great ancestor's writings, he 
answered (though doubtless without any inten- 
tional comment on his ancestor's reputation) that 
in his happier days he had several of De Foe's 
works; but that he never could keep a copy of 
"Robinson Crusoe;" "there were so many bor- 
rowers of the book in Hungerford Market alone." 
Charles Knight, the publisher and antiquarian, insti- 
tuted the fund, and the money was raised by him 
chiefly among literary men. 

The most sentimental and picturesque interest 
attaches itself to the extensive series of buildings 
on the south side of Fleet Street, familiarly known 
as the Temple. Here Goldsmith is buried beside the 
curious and interesting Temple Church. The other 
of the four great Inns of Court are Lincoln's Inn 
in Chancery Lane and Gray's Inn in Holborn. Al- 
lied with the four great inns were the more or less 



subsidiary Inns of Chancery, all situated in the 
immediate neighbourhood, one of which, at least, 
being intimately associated with Dickens' life in 
London — Furnival's Inn, which, with Thavie's Inn, 
was attached to Lincoln's Inn. Here Dickens lived 
in 1835 at No'. 15, and here also he lived subsequent 
to his marriage with Catherine Hogarth in the fol- 
lowing year. It was at this time that the first num- 
ber of " Pickwick " was written and published. 
The building itself was pulled down sometime dur- 
ing the past few years. 

Comprising several squares and rows, what is 
commonly referred to as the Temple, belongs to 
the members of two societies, the Inner and Middle 
Temple, consisting of " benchers," barristers, and 
students. This famous old place, taken in its com- 
pleteness, was, in 1184, the metropolitan residence 
of the Knights Templars, who held it until their 
downfall in 13 13; soon afterward it was occupied 
by students of the law; and in 1608 James I. pre- 
sented the entire group of structures to the " bench- 
ers " of the two societies, who have ever since been 
the absolute owners. The entrance tO' Inner Temple, 
from Fleet Street, is nothing more than a mere gate- 
way; the entrance to Middle Temple is more pre- 
tentious, and was designed by Sir Christopher 
Wren. A group of chambers, called rather con- 



32 Dicftens' XonDon 

Here in the heart of the great world of London 
exists, as in no other city on the globe, a quiet and 
leafy suburb, peopled only by those whose vocation 
is not of the commonalty. Its very environment is 
inspiring to great thoughts and deeds, and small 
wonder it is that so many master minds have first 
received their stimulus amid the shady walks and 
rather gloomy buildings of the Temple. 

True it is that they are gloomy, on the outside 
at least, — dull brick rows with gravelled or flagged 
courtyards, but possessing withal a geniality which 
many more glaring and modern surroundings ut- 
terly lack. 

The stranger, for sightseeing, and the general 
public, to take advantage of a short cut to the river, 
throng its walks during the busy hours around noon- 
time. All sorts and conditions of men hurry busily 
along in a never-ending stream, but most to be re- 
marked is the staid and earnest jurist, his managing 
clerk, or the aspiring bencher, as his duties compel 
him to traverse this truly hallowed ground. 

By nightfall the atmosphere and associations of 
the entire Temple take on, if possible, a more quiet 
and somnolescent air than by day. It must, if report 
be true, be like a long-deserted city in the small hours 
of the night. A group of chambers, called rather con- 



Dickens' Xon&on 33 

temptuously Paper Buildings, is near the river and 
is a good example of revived Elizabethan architec- 
ture. A new Inner Temple Hall was formally 
opened in 1870, by the Princess Louise. In October, 
1 86 1, when the Prince of Wales was elected a 
bencher of the Middle Temple, the new Library was 
formally opened. The Temple Church, as seen from 
the river, with its circular termination, like nothing 
else in the world except Charlemagne's church at 
Aix la Chapelle, is one of the most interesting 
churches in London. All the main parts of the 
structure are as old as the time of the Knights 
Templars ; but restorations of the middle nineteenth 
century, when the munificent sum of £70,000 was 
spent, are in no small way responsible for its many 
visible attributes which previously had sadly fallen 
to decay. There are two portions, the Round 
Church and the Choir, the one nearly 700 years 
old and the other more than 600. The chief dis- 
tinguishing features of the interior are the monu- 
mental effigies, the original sculptured heads in the 
Round Church, the triforium, and the fittings of 
the Choir. The north side of the church has been 
opened out by the removal of the adjoining build- 
ings where, in the churchyard, is the grave of Oliver 
Goldsmith, who died in chambers (since pulled 
down) in Brick Court. The Temple Gardens, 



34 Bicftens' Xont)on 

fronting the river, are laid out as extensive shrub 
and tree-bordered lawns, which are generously 
thrown open to the public in the summer. A more 
charming sylvan retreat, there is not in any city 
in the world. 

In the good old times, legal education and hos^ 
pitality went hand in hand, and the halls of the 
different Inns of Court were, for several centuries, 
a kind of university for the education of advocates, 
subject to this arrangement. The benchers and 
readers, being the superiors of each house, occupied, 
on public occasions of ceremony, the upper end of 
the hall, which was raised on a dais, and separated 
from the rest of the building by a bar. The next 
in degree were the utter barristers, who, after they 
had attained a certain standing, were called from the 
body of the hall to the bar (that is, to the first place 
outside the bar), for the purpose of taking a prin- 
cipal part in the mootings or exercises of the house ; 
and hence they probably derived the name of utter 
or outer barristers. The other members of the inn, 
consisting of students of the law under the degree 
of utter barristers, took their places nearer to the 
centre of the hall, and farther from the bar, and, 
from this manner of distribution, appear to have 
been called inner barristers. The distinction be- 
tween utter and inner barristers is, at the present 



Bicftcns' Xon^on 35 

day, wholly abolished ; the former being called bar- 
risters generally, and the latter falling under the 
denomination of students; but the phrase "called 
to the bar " still holds and is recognized through- 
out the English-speaking world. 

The general rule, as to qualification, in all the 
Inns of Court, is, that a person, in order to entitle 
himself to be called to the bar, must be twenty-one 
years of age, have kept twelve terms, and have been 
for five, or three years, at least, a member of the 
society. The keeping of terms includes dining a 
certain number of times in the hall, and hence the 
pleasantry of eating the way to the bar; the pre- 
paratory studies being now private. Of the great 
business of refection, the engraving herewith shows 
the most dignified scene — the Benchers' Dinner ; 
the benchers, or " antients," as they were formerly 
called, being the governors of the inn, at the Temple 
called the Parliament. The Middle Temple hall sur- 
passes the halls of the other societies in size and 
splendour. Begun in 1562, and finished about ten 
years afterward, it is 100 feet long, 40 feet wide, 
and upwards of 60 feet in height. The roof and 
panels are finely decorated, and the screen at the 
lower end is beautifully carved. There are a few 
good pictures: amongst others, one oi Charles I. 



36 H)icf?ens' Xon&on 






on horseback, by Vandyke ; also portraits of Charles 
11. , Queen Anne, George I., and George II. 

Lincoln's Inn was once the property of Henry 
De Lacy, Earl of Lincoln. It became an Inn of 
Court in 1310. The New Hall and Library, a 
handsome structure after the Tudor style, was 
opened in 1845. The Chapel was built in 1621-23, 
by Inigo Jones, who laid out the large garden in 
Lincoln's Inn Fields, close by, in 1620. Lord Will- 
iam Russell was beheaded here in 1683. In Lin- 
coln's Inn are the Chancery and Equity Courts. 
Lincoln's Inn vied with the Temple in the masques 
and revels of the time of James I. 

Gray's Inn, nearly opposite the north end of 
Chancery Lane, once belonged to the Lords Gray of 
Wilton. Most of its buildings — except its hall, 
with its black oak roof — are of comparatively 
modern date. In Gray's Inn lived the great Lord 
Bacon, a tree planted by whom, in the quaint old 
garden of the Inn, could, in Dickens' time, yet 
be seen — propped up by iron stays. To-day a 
diligent search and inquiry does not indicate its 
whereabouts, which is another manifestation of the 
rapidity of the age in which we live. 

The nine Inns of Chancery allied with the four 
Inns of Court, the Inner and Middle Temple, Lin- 
coln's Inn and Gray's Inn, are Clifford's Inn, Clem- 



Dichens' XonDon 37 

ent's Inn, Lyons' Inn, New Inn, Furnival's Inn, 
Thavie's Inn, Sergeant's Inn, Staple Inn, and Bar- 
nard's Inn, all of which were standing in Dickens' 
day, but of which only Staple Inn and Sergeant's 
Inn have endured, Clement's Inn having only re- 
cently (1903) succumbed to the house-breaker. 

Staple Inn, in Holborn, " the fay rest inne of 
Chancerie," is one of the quaintest, quietest, and 
most interesting corners of mediseval London left 
to us. 

Nathaniel Hawthorne, describing his first wan- 
derings in London, said, " I went astray in Holborn 
through an arched entrance over which was Staple 
Inn, and here likewise seemed to be offices ; but in 
a court opening inwards from this, there was a 
surrounding seclusion of quiet dwelling-houses, with 
beautiful green shrubbery and grass-plots in the 
court and a great many sunflowers in full bloom. 
The windows were open, it was a lovely summer 
afternoon, and I had a sense that bees were hum- 
ming in the court." Many more years have passed 
over the old corner since Hawtho'me's visit, but still 
it retains its ancient charm, and still the visitor 
is struck by the rapid change from the hurrying 
stream of Holborn's traffic to this haunt of ancient 
peace about which Mr. Worsfold writes with par- 
donable enthusiasm. 



38 2)icftens' Xont>on 

With a history traceable backward for many cen- 
turies, Staple Inn was at first associated in the mid- 
dle ages with the dealing in the " staple commodity " 
of wool, to use Lord Chief Justice Coke's words, 
but about the fifteenth century the wool merchants 
gave way to the wearers of woollen " stuff," and 
their old haunt became one of the Inns of Chancery 
— the Staple Inn of the lawyers — perpetuating 
its origin in its insignia, a bale of wool. For many 
years the connection of the Inn with the Law was 
little beyond a nominal one, and in 1884 the great 
change came, and the haunt of merchants, the old 
educational establishment for lawyers, passed from 
the hands of " The Principal, Ancients and Juniors 
of the Honourable Society of Staple Inn," to tKbse 
of a big insurance society, while the fine old hall 
became the headquarters of the Institute of Actu- 
aries. 

True it is, that perhaps no area of the earth's sur- 
face, of say a mile square, has a tithe of the varied 
literary association of the neighbourhood lying in 
the immediate vicinity of the Temple, the birthplace 
of Lamb, the home of Fielding, and the grave of 
Goldsmith. 

Shoe Lane, Fleet Street, is still haunted by the 
memory of the boy Chatterton, and Will's Coffee 
House, the resort of wits and literary lights of 



H)icKen6' Xon&on 39 

former days, vies with Royal Palaces as an attrac- 
tion for those who would worship at the shrines of 
a bygone age, — a process which has been made the 
easier of late, now that the paternal Society of Arts 
has taken upon itself to appropriately mark, by 
means of a memorial tablet, many of these local- 
ities, of which all mention is often omitted from 
the guide-books. Often the actual houses them- 
selves have disappeared, and it may be questioned 
if it were not better that in some instances a tablet 
commemorating a home or haunt of some nota- 
bility were not omitted. Still if the accompanying 
inscription is only sufficiently explicit, the act is a 
worthy one, and truth to tell, a work that is well 
performed in London. 

Suburban London, too, in a way, may well come 
within the scope of the passion of any lover of ma- 
terial things which have at one time or another 
been a part and parcel of the lives of great men. 
And so, coupled with literary associations, we have 
the more or less imaginary " Bell " at Edmonton 
to remind us of Cowper, of many houses and scenes 
identified with Carlyle, at Chelsea; of the poet 
Thompson, of Gainsborough, and a round score of 
celebrities who have been closely identified with 
Richmond, — and yet others as great, reminiscent 
of Pepys, Addison, Steele, Thackeray and the whole 



4° Dichens' Xon&on 

noble band of chroniclers, essayists, and diarists of 
the seventeenth, eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. 

The " houses of entertainment " — as the Geor- 
gian novelist was pleased to refer to inns and taverns 
— had in Dickens' day not departed greatly from 
their original status. Referring solely to those 
coaching and posting-houses situated at a greater 
or lesser distance from the centre of tovv^n, — on 
the main roads running therefrom, and those city 
establishments comprehended strictly under the 
head of taverns, — which were more particularly 
places of refreshment for mankind of the genus 
male. These two classes were, and are, quite dis- 
tinct from the later-day caravanserai known as 
hotels, and as such performed vastly different func- 
tions. 

To be sure, all life and movement of the early 
nineteenth century, and for a couple of hundred 
years before, had a great deal to do^ with inns and 
taverns. 

From Chaucer's famous " Tabard," where — 

" In Southwark at the Tabard as I lay 
Ready to wenden on my pilgrimage^'' 

to " The Bull," at Rochester, whose courtyard is 
still as described by Dickens, and the somewhat 
mythical " Maypole " of " Barnaby Rudge," is a 



far cry, though it would appear that the kind of 
cheer and accommodation varies to a much lesser 
degree than might be supposed. Certainly the de- 
mand for brevity and the luxuriousness of the later 
years of the nineteenth century, and even to some 
extent during Dickens' time, with the innovation 
of railway travel, gas-lamps, the telegraph, and 
what not, was making an entirely new set of con- 
ditions and demands. 

The old " Tabard " of Chaucer's day is no more, 
though an antiquary of 1840 has attempted to con- 
struct what it may have been out of the " Talbot " 
of that day, which stood in the ancient High Street 
of Southwark, just across London Bridge, where, 
said the annalist Stow, " there were so many fair 
inns for receipt of travellers," — the rivals of the 
Boar's Heads and Mermaids of another generation. 

Of the actual Dickens' inns, perhaps none is 
more vividly impressed on the imagination than 
that of the " Maypole," that fantastic structure of 
" Barnaby Rudge," the original of which is the 
" King's Head " at Chigwell on the borders of 
Epping Forest. It was here that Mr. Willet sat 
in his accustomed place, " his eyes on the eternal 
boiler." " Before he had got his ideas into focus, 
he had stared at the plebeian utensil quite twenty 
minutes," — all of which indicates the minutiae and 



42 2)lcftens* XonDon 



I 



precision of Dickens' observations. This actual 
copper, vouched for by several documents of attes- 
tation, with an old chair which formerly stood in 
the Chester Room of the " Maypole," is to-day in 
the possession of Mr. Bransby Williams, of Lon- 
don, an ardent enthusiast of all matters in con- 
nection with Dickens and his stories. 

Of the Pickwickian Inns, the " White Horse " 
at Ipswich — " the overgrown tavern " to which 
Mr. Pickwick journeyed by the London Coach — 
is something of tangible reality, and doubtless little 
changed to this day ; the same being equally true of 
"The Leather Bottle" at Cobham. The old 
"White Hart" in the Borough High Street, the 
scene of the first meeting of Mr. Pickwick and 
Weller, was demolished in 1889. Not so the 
" Magpie and Stump," — that referred to in " Pick- 
wick " as being in the vicinity of the Clare Market, 
and " closely approximating to the back of the 
' New Inn.' " This seems to have been of an imag- 
inary character in nomeiiclature, at least, though 
it is like enough that some neighbourhood hos- 
telry — or, as it is further referred to, as being 
what the ordinary person would call a " low public- 
house " — was in mind. 

The old " Fountain Inn " of the Minories, referred 
to in " Oliver Twist," and the " little inn " (" The 



2)icl?ens* Xon^on 43 

Sun ") at Canterbury, where the Micawbers lodged, 
and the " White Hart " at Hook, — or more prob- 
ably its predecessor of the same name, — visited 
by the Pickwickians en route to Rochester, — were 
realities in every sense of the word, and show once 
again the blending of truth and fiction which was 
so remarkable in the novels, and which indicates so 
strongly the tendency of Dickens to make every 
possible use of accessories, sights, and scenes, with 
which, at one time or another, he had been ac- 
quainted. 

The " Saracen's Head " at Snow Hill, — a real 
thing in Dickens' day, — where the impetuous 
Squeers put up during his visits to London, has 
disappeared. It was pulled down when the Holborn 
Viaduct was built in 1869, and the existing house of 
the same name in no way merits the genial regard 
which is often bestowed upon it, in that it is but 
an ordinary London " Pub " which does not even 
occupy the same site as its predecessor. 

" The Spaniards," where foregathered the No- 
Popery rioters, on Hampstead Heath, remains 
much as of yore; certainly it has not changed to 
any noticeable degree since Mrs. Bardell, et als., re- 
paired hither in the Hampstead stage for their cele- 
brated tea-party, as recounted in " Pickwick." 

The very term Pickwickian Inns inspires rumi- 



44 2)icftens' XonDon 

ij 

nation and imagination to a high degree. Remem-'' 
brance is all very well, but there is a sturdy reality 
about most of the inns of which Dickens wrote. 
Thus the enthusiast may, if he so wish, in some 
cases, become a partaker of the same sort of com- 
fort as did Dickens in his own time, or at least, 
amid the same surroundings; though it is to be 
feared that New Zealand mutton and Argentine beef 
have usurped the place in the larder formerly oc- 
cupied by the " primest Scotch " and the juiciest 
" Southdown." 

It is said there are twenty-five inns mentioned in 
" Pickwick " alone; the writer has never been able 
to count up but twenty-twO'i still the assertion may 
be correct; he leaves it to the curious to verify. 
Certainly such well revered names as the " Golden 
Cross," " The Bull," at Rochester, which, above 
all other localities drawn in " Pickwick," has the 
liveliest associations, " The Leather Bottle," " The 
Magpie and Stump," " The Marquis of Granby," 
"The Blue Boar," "The White Horse Cellars" 
in Piccadilly, and " The Great White Horse " at 
Ipswich are for ever branded upon the memory. 
The following half-dozen will perhaps be best re- 
called: "The Old White Hart" in the Borough 
High Street ; " The George and Vulture," Mr. Pick- 
wick's own favourite; "The Golden Cross," remi- 



Bichens* XonDon 45 

niscent of Dickens' own personality as well ; " The 
White Horse Cellars," the starting-place of the 
Ipswich Coach; " Osborne's Hotel " in the Adelphi, 
still occupied as a rather shabby sort of hostelry, 
though the name has gone; " Jack Straw's Castle," 
where " Boz " and his friend Forster so often en- 
joyed that "shoemaker's holiday;" and lastly, 
" The Spaniards " at Hampstead. A description of 
one, as it is to-day, must suffice here. 

" The Golden Cross," which stands opposite Char- 
ing Cross Railway Station, with its floriated gilt 
crosses usually brightly burnished, and the entire 
edifice resplendent in new paint. 

There is still, however, something of the air of 
the conservatism of a former day, if only in the 
manner of building, which in the present case fur- 
thers the suggestion that the ways of the modern 
architect — striving for new and wonderful con- 
structive methods — were unknown when the walls 
of this old hostelry were put up. 

Its courtyard has disappeared, or rather has been 
incorporated into a sort O'f warehouse or stable for 
a parcels delivery company, and the neighbourhood 
round about has somewhat changed since the days 
of " Copperfield " and " Pickwick." The Charing 
Cross Railway Station has come upon the scene, 
replacing old Hungerford Market, and palatial 



46 Dicftens' XonDon 



t 



hotels have been built where the gardens of North- 
umberland House once were. St.-Martin's-in-the- 
Fields is still in its wonted place, but with a change 
for the worse, in that the platform with its ascend- 
ing steps has been curtailed during a recent alleged 
improvement in the roadway in St. Martin's Lane. 

The National Gallery remains as of yore, except 
that it has recently been isolated by pulling down 
some adjoining structures to the northwest, as a 
precautionary measure against fire. 

The Nelson Monument in Trafalgar Square, then 
newly arrived, is as it was in the days of Dickens' 
early life. But there is little suggestion in the hotel 
or its surroundings of its ever having been a 
" mouldy sort of an establishment in a close neigh- 
bourhood," and it is hard to believe that Copper- 
field's bedroom " smelt like a hackney-coach and 
was shut up like a family vault." 



DICKENS' LITERARY LIFE 

yt BRIEF account is here given of Dickens' 
yM literary career, which presents chronolog- 
ically a review of his productions as they 
appeared. 

The first of his literary efforts was the tragedy 
of " The Sultan of India," written in his precocious 
school-days at Chatham, when, if we except his 
Parliamentary journalistic work, nothing else was 
put forth until " The Dinner at Poplar Walk " was 
published in the Monthly Magazine (1833). The 
original " Sketches by Boz " — the first of which 
bore no signature — also followed in the Monthly 
Magazine. Other sketches under the same generic 
title also appeared in the Evening Chronicle, and 
yet others, under the title of " Scenes and Charac- 
ters," were published in " Bell's Life in London " 
and the " Library of Fiction." 

In 1836 a number of these fugitive pieces were 
collected into a volume, the copyright of which was 
sold to one Macrone for £100, who published them 

47 



48 Bicftens' Xont)on 

under the first and best known title, " Sketches by 
Boz." The famiHar story of " Pickwick," its early 
conception and its final publication, is well known. 
Its first publication (in parts) dated from 1836-37. 
About this time Dickens had another bad attack 
of stage-fever, and wrote a farce, " The Strange 
Gentleman," the libretto of an opera called '' The 
Village Coquettes," and a comedy, " Is She His 
Wife? " more particularly perhaps for amateur rep- 
resentation, in which he was very fond of taking 
part. " Oliver Twist," a courageous attack on the 
Poor Laws and Bumbledom, followed in 1838, 
though it was not completed until after " Nicholas 
Nickleby " began to appear in 1839. 

At this time was started Master Humphrey's 
Clock, a sort of miscellany in which it was intended 
to publish a series of papers written chiefly by Dick- 
ens himself after the style of Addison's Spectator 
of a former day. It was not at first successful, and 
only upon the commencement therein of the " Old 
Curiosity Shop " did it take on in any sense. 

Master Humphrey's Clock ran down with the 
completion of the novel, though this story, in com- 
pany with " Barnaby Rudge," a tale of the riots of 
'80, was not issued in book form until 1848 and 
1849. 

The authorship of " Pickwick " was unknown by 



I 



DicKens' Xonbon 49 

the great mass of the public until very nearly the 
completion of the work in serial parts. Much con- 
jecture was raised, and a writer in Bentley's Mis- 
cellany published the following lines under the title 
of: 

IMPROMPTU 

" Who the Dickens ' Boz ' could be 
Puzzled tnany a learned elf, 
Till time revealed the mystery, 

And ' Boz ' appeared as Dickens' self^ 

The other contributions made by Dickens to this 
periodical were afterward added to his published 
works under the title of " Master Humphrey's 
Clock." 

Dickens' first tour to America followed the 
abandonment of the periodical in 1842. This event 
called forth the following verses by Tom Hood, 
entitled : 

TO CHARLES DICKENS 

On his Proposed Voyage to America, 1842. 

" Pshaw / away with leaf and berry 

And the sober-sided cup / 
Bring a Goblet and bright Sherry f 

And a btnnper fill me up. — 
The'' I had a pledge to shiver, 

A nd the longest ever was, — 
Ere his vessel leaves our river, 

I will drink a health to ' Boz^ 



so Bicftens' Xont)on 

" Here's success to all his antics^ 

Since it pleases him to roam. 
And to paddle o''er Atlantics, 

After such a sale at home 
May he shun all rocks whatever, 

And the shallow sand that lurks, — 
And his passage be as clever 

As the best among his works P 

With what favour his visit was received in Amer- 
ica is too well known to require detailed mention 
here. His experiences and observations recounted 
in " American Notes," first published in 1842 upon 
his return to England, has told these vividly and 
picturesquely, if not exactly consistently. 

As a reader, Dickens stood as preeminently to the 
fore as when posing as a writer. His phenomenal 
success on the platform is given in detail in a vol- 
ume written by George Dolby, who accompanied 
him and managed his American tour. The mental 
and physical strain was such that in fifteen years 
of combined editorial, literary, and reading labours, 
it left him attenuated and finally curtailed his bril- 
liant work. 

What the readings really did accomplish was to 
increase and firmly assure the permanence of his 
already wide-spread fame. 

"Martin Chuzzlewit "■ had begun to appear in 
shilling parts in 1843, and at that time was con- 



, 



Dickens* Xonbon 51 

sidered by the novelist to be by far the best work 
he had yet written. " Dombey and Son " followed, 
and afterward " David Copperfield," to which 
Dickens transferred his affections from " Chuzzle- 
wit." This new " child of fancy," as he called it, 
was so largely autobiographical as to be accepted 
by many as being a recounting of his own early 
struggles as a poor boy in London, and his early 
literary labours. He himself said : " I seemed to 
be sending a part of myself into the shadowy 
world." 

While " Chuzzlewit " was appearing in serial 
form, that masterpiece perhaps of all Dickens' 
shorter stories, " A Christmas Carol," — the first 
of the "Christmas Stories," — appeared. 

This earned for its author the sobriquet, " The 
Apostle of Christmas." 

Its immediate popularity and success was, per- 
haps, influenced by the following endorsement from 
Thackeray : 

" It seems to me a national benefit, and to every 
man or woman who reads it a personal kindness." 

Others under the same generic title followed : 
" The Chimes." 1844; " The Cricket on the Hearth," 
1845; "The Battle of Life," 1846; and "The 
Haunted Man," 1848. In January, 1846, Dickens 
began his short connection with the Daily News. 



52 Dichens' Xon&on 

Here his " Pictures from Italy " appeared, he having 
just returned from a journey thither. 

" Dombey and Son," which Dickens had begun 
at Rosemont, Lausanne, took him from 1846 to 
1848 to complete. 

In 1850 the idea of Household Words, the peri- 
odical with which Dickens' fame is best remem- 
bered, took shape. His idea was for a low-priced 
periodical, to be partly original, and in part selected. 
" I want to suppose," he wrote, " a certain shadow 
which may go into any place by starlight, moon- 
light, sunlight, or candle-light, and be in all homes 
and all nooks and corners." The general outlines 
and plans were settled, but there appears to have 
been no end of difficulty in choosing a suitable name. 
" The Highway of Life,"/' The Holly Tree," " The 
Household Voice," " The Household Guest," and 
many others were thought of, and finally was hit 
upon " Household Words," the first number of 
which appeared on March 30, 1850, with the open- 
ing chapters of a serial by Mrs. Gaskell, whose 
work Dickens greatly admired. In number two ap- 
peared Dickens' own pathetic story, " The Child's 
Dream of a Star." In 1859, as originally con- 
ceived, Household Words was discontinued, from 
no want of success, but as an expediency brought 
about through disagreement among the various pro- 



2)icl?ens' XonDon 53 

prietors. Dickens bought the property in, and 
started afresh under the title of All the Year Round, 
among whose contributors were Edmund Yates, 
Percy Fitzgerald, Charles- Lever, Wilkie Collins, 
Charles Reade, and Lord Lytton. This paper in 
turn came to its finish, and phoenix-like took shape 
again as Household Words, which in one form or 
another has endured to the present day, its present 
editor (1903) being Hall Caine, Jr., a son of the 
novelist. 

Apart from the general circulation, the special 
Christmas numbers had an enormous sale. In these 
appeared other of the shorter pieces which have since 
become famous, — " Mugby Junction," " The Seven 
Poor Travellers," " The Haunted House," etc. 

In the pages of Household Words " The Child's 
History of England," *' The Uncommercial Trav- 
eller " (1861), and " Hard Times " (1854) first ap- 
peared; while All the Year Round first presented 
" A Tale of Two Cities " (1859) and " Great Ex- 
pectations." 

" Bleak House " was issued in parts in 1852. 
" Little Dorrit," originally intended to be called 
" Nobody's Fault," was published in 1857. 

" Our Mutual Friend " dates from 1865 in book 
form. " Edwin Drood " was left unfinished at the 
author's death in 1870. 



54 Btcftens' Xon&on 

In 1868 " The Uncommercial Traveller " was 
elaborated for the first issue in All the Year Round, 
and subsequently again given to the world in re- 
vised book form. 

Curiously enough, though most of Dickens' 
works were uncompleted before they began to ap- 
pear serially, they have been universally considered 
to show absolutely no lack of continuity, or the least 
semblance of being in any way disjointed. 

Dickens' second visit to America in 1867 was, 
like its predecessor, a stupendous success. A New 
York paper stated at this time that : " Of the mil- 
lions here who treasure every word he has written, 
there are tens of thousands who would make a large 
sacrifice to see and hear a man who has made so 
many happy hours." 

Dickens' fame had deservedly attracted a large 
circle of acquaintances around him, who, in truth, 
became firmly converted into fast friends. 

His literary life and his daily labours had so 
identified him with the literary London of the day 
that all reference to literary events of that time must 
make due allowance of his movements. 

The house at 48 Doughty Street still stands, 
and at the end of 1839 the novelist removed to the 
" handsome house with a considerable garden " in 
Devonshire Terrace, near Regent's Park, the subject 




DICKENS HOUSE IX DEVONSHIRE TERRACE. 

From ii lii'iin'iiig' by J/iii//xt'. 




NO. 48 DOUGHTY STREET, WHERE DICKENS LIVED 



I 



Dicftens' Xon^on 55 

of a sketch by Maclise which is here given. His 
hoHdays during his early and busy years were spent 
at Broadstairs, Twickenham, and Petersham on the 
Thames, just above Richmond. Dickens was always 
a great traveller, and his journeys often took him 
far afield. 

In 1 84 1 he visited Landor at Bath, and in the 
same year he made an excursion to Scotland and 
was granted the freedom of the city of Edinburgh. 
The first visit to America was undertaken in 1842; 
his Italian travels in 1844; residence in Switzer- 
land 1846; three months in Paris 1847; Switzer- 
land and Italy revisited in 1853. Three summers 
were spent at Boulogne in 1853, 1854, 1856; resi- 
dence in Paris 1855-56; America revisited 1867-68. 

Such in brief is a review of the physical activities 
of the author. He did not go to Australia — as 
he was variously importuned — but enough is given 
to show that, in spite of his literary associations 
with old London and its institutions, Charles Dick- 
ens was, for a fact, a very cosmopolitan observer. 

As for Dickens' daily round of London life, 
it is best represented by the period of the magazines, 
Master Humphrey's Clock, Household Words, and 
All the Year Round, particularly that of the former. 
In those days he first met with the severe strain 



s6 Dichens' XonDon 

which in after Hfe proved, no doubt, to have short- 
ened his days. 

Considering his abihties and his early vogue, 
Dickens made some astonishingly bad blunders in 
connection with his agreements with publishers; of 
these his biographer Forster tells in detail. 

After the publication of " Martin Chuzzlewit," 
Dickens expressed dissatisfaction with his publish- 
ers, M'essrs. Chapman and Hall, which resulted in 
his making an agreement with Messrs. Bradbury 
and Evans. 

To conserve his intellectual resources, he resolved 
to again visit Italy, to which country he repaired 
after a farewell dinner given him at Greenwich, 
where Turner, the artist, and many other notables 
attended. He accordingly settled in a suburb of 
Genoa, where he wrote " The Chimes," and came 
back to London especially to read it to his friends. 
Writing from Genoa to Forster in November, 1844, 
he said : 

". . . But the party for the night following? 
I know you have consented to the party. Let me 
see. Don't have any one this particular night for 
dinner, but let it be a summons for the special pur- 
pose, at half-past six. Carlyle indispensable, and 
I should like his wife of all things; her judgment 
would be invaluable. You will ask Mac, and why 







2 I 



I 



Dichens* Xon^on S7 

not his sister? Stanny and Jerrold I should partic- 
ularly wish; Edwin Landseer, Blanchard . . . and 
when I meet you, oh ! Heaven, what a week we will 
have! " 

Forster further describes the occasion itself as 
being — 

" Rather memorable . . . the germ of those read- 
ings to larger audiences by which, as much as by 
his books, the world knew him." 

Among those present was Maclise, who, says 
Forster, " made a note of it " in pencil, which is 
reproduced herein. " It will tell the reader all he 
can wish to know, and he will thus see of whom 
the party consisted." 

Of Dickens' entire literary career nothing was 
more successful than his famous public readings. 
From that night at Forster's house in Lincoln's 
Inn Fields (No. 58, still standing, 1903), after- 
ward made use of as Mr|. Tulkinghorn's in " Bleak 
House," and later among other friends, at first in 
a purely informal and private manner and in a 
semi-public way for charitable objects, these di- 
versions, so powerful and realistic were they, ulti- 
mately grew into an out-and-out recognized business 
enterprise. 

The first series was inaugurated in 1858-59, and 
absolutely took the country by storm, meeting with 



58 Dicftens' Xon^on 

the greatest personal affection and respect wherever 
he went. In DubHn there was almost a riot. Peo- 
ple broke the pay-box, and freely offered £5 for a 
stall. In Belfast he had enormous audiences, being 
compelled, he said, to turn half the town away. 
The reading over, the people ran after him to look 
at him. " Do me the honour," said one, " to shake 
hands, Misther Dickens, and God bless you, sir; 
not ounly for the light you've been to me this night, 
but for the light you've been to mee house, sir (and 
God bless your face!), this many a year." Men 
cried undisguisedly. 

During the second American tour, in 1867, the 
public went almost mad. In Boston his reception 
was beyond all expectations; and in New York 
the speculators assembled the night before the read- 
ing in long lines to wait the opening of the doors at 
nine the next morning for the issue of the tickets. 
They continued to come all night, and at five o'clock 
in the morning there were two lines of eight hun- 
dred each, whilst at eight there were five thousand. 
At nine o'clock, each of the two lines reached more 
than three-quarters of a mile in length, members of 
the families were relieving each other, waiters from 
neighbouring restaurants were serving breakfasts 
in the open December air, and excited applicants 
for tickets offering five or ten dollars for the mere 



H)icftens' Xon^on 59 

pei'mission to exchange places with other persons 
standing nearer the head of the Hne. Excitement 
and enthusiasm increased wherever he travelled, 
and it has been freely observed by all whO' knew 
him well that this excitement and strain finally cul- 
minated, after he had returned to England and 
undertaken there another series of readings, in an 
illness which hastened his death. 



THE HIGHWAY OF LETTERS 

/N Dickens' time, as in our own, and even 
at as early a period as that of Drayton, 
Fleet Street, as it has latterly been known, 
has been the abode of letters and of literary labours. 

The diarists, journalists, political and religious 
writers of every party and creed have adopted it as 
their own particular province. Grub Street no 
longer exists, so that the simile of Doctor Johnson 
does not still hold true. 

The former Grub Street — " inhabited by writ- 
ers of small histories, dictionaries, and temporary 
poems " (vide Doctor Johnson's Dictionary) — has 
become Milton Street through the mindful re- 
gard of some former sponsor, by reason of the 
nearness of its location to the former Bunhill resi- 
dence of the great epic poet. But modern Fleet 
Street exists to-day as the street of journalists and 
journalism, from the humble penny-a-liner and his 
product to the more sedate and verbose political 

60 



Bicftens* XonC)on 6i 

paragrapher whose reputation extends throughout 
the world. 

Nowhere else is there a long mile of such an 
atmosphere, redolent of printers' ink and the bustle 
attendant upon the production and distribution of 
the printed word. And nowhere else is the power 
of the press more potent. 

Its historian has described it as " a line of street, 
with shops and houses on either side, between Tem- 
ple Bar and Ludgate Hill, one of the largest thor- 
oughfares in London, and one of the most famous." 

Its name was derived from the ancient streamlet 
called the Fleet, more commonly " Fleet Ditch," 
near whose confluence with the Thames, at Lud- 
gate Hill, was the notorious Fleet Prison, with its 
equally notorious " marriages." 

This reeking abode of mismanagement was pulled 
down in 1844, when the " Marshalsea," " The 
Fleet," and the " Queen's Bench " (all three remi- 
niscent of Dickens, likewise Newgate, not far away) 
were consolidated in a new structure erected else- 
where. 

The unsavoury reputation of the old prison of 
the Fleet, its " chaplains," and its " marriages," 
are too well-known to readers of contemporary lit- 
erature to be more than mentioned here. 

The memory of the famous persons who were 



62 2)icften8' XonDon 

at one time or another confined in this " noisome 
place with a pestilential atmosphere " are recalled 
by such names as Bishop Hooper, the martyr; 
Nash, the poet and satirist; Doctor Donne, Killi- 
grew, the Countess of Dorset, Viscount Falkland, 
William Prynne, Richard Savage, and — of the 
greatest possible interest to Americans — William 
Penn, who lived "within the rules" in 1707. 

The two churches lying contiguous to this thor- 
oughfare, St. Dunstan's-in-the-West and St. Bride's, 
are mentioned elsewhere; also the outlying courts 
and alleys, such as Falcon, Mitre, and Salisbury 
Courts, Crane Court, Fetter Lane, Chancery Lane, 
Whitefriars, Bolt Court, Bell Yard, and Shoe 
Lane, the Middle and Inner Temples, and Sergeant's 
Inn. 

The great fire of London of 1666 stopped at 
St. Dunstan's-in-the-West and at the easterly con- 
fines of the Temple opposite. 

Michael Drayton, the poet, lived at " a baye- 
windowed house next the east end of St. Dunstan's 
Church," and Cowley was born " near unto the 
corner of Chancery Lane." 

The " Horn Tavern," near which was Mrs. 
Salmon's celebrated waxwork exhibition (for which 
species of entertainment the street had been fa- 
mous since Elizabeth's time), is now Anderton's 



Btcftens* Xont)on 63 

Hotel, still a famous house for " pressmen," the 
name by which the London newspaper writer is 
known. 

A mere mention of the sanctity of letters which 
surrounded the Fleet Street of a former day is 
presumably the excuse for connecting it with the 
later development of literary affairs, which may be 
said, so far as its modern repute is concerned, to 
have reached its greatest and most popular height 
in Dickens' own time. 

The chroniclers, the diarists, and the satirists 
had come and gone. Richardson — the father of 
the English novel — lay buried in St. Bride's, and 
the innovation of the great dailies had passed the 
stage of novelty. The Gentleman's Magazine and 
the Reviews had been established three-quarters of 
a century before. The Times had just begun to be 
printed by steam. Each newspaper bore an im- 
printed government stamp of a penny per copy, — 
a great source of revenue in that the public paid 
it, not the newspaper proprietor. {The Times then 
sold for five pence per copy. ) The Illustrated Lon- 
don News, the pioneer of illustrated newspapers, 
had just come into existence, and Punch, under 
Blanchard and Jerrold, had just arrived at maturity, 
so to speak. Such, in a brief way, were the begin- 
nings of the journaHsm of our day; and Dickens' 



64 BicKens' Xont)on 

connection therewith, as Parliamentary reporter of 
The True Sun and The Morning Chronicle, were 
the beginnings of his days of assured and adequate 
income, albeit that it came to him at a comparatively 
early period of his life. The London journalist 
of Dickens' day was different in degree only from 
the present. The True Sun, for which Dickens 
essayed his first reportorial work, and later The 
Morning Chronicle, were both influential journals, 
and circulated between them perhaps forty thousand 
copies, each bearing a penny stamp impressed on 
the margin, as was the law. 

The newspapers of London, as well as of most 
great cities, had a localized habitation, yclept 
Newspaper Row or Printing-House Square, and 
other similar appellations. In London the major- 
ity of them were, and are, printed east of Temple 
Bar, in, or south of. Fleet Street, between Waterloo 
and Blackfriars Bridges. To borrow Johnson's 
phrase, this is the mart " whose staple is news." 

The Times — "The Thunderer" of old — was 
housed in a collection of buildings which surrounded ■ 
Printing-House Square, just east of Blackfriars 
Bridge. In 1840 The Times had, or was understood 
to have, three editors, fifteen reporters, with a more 
or less uncertain and fluctuating number of corre- 
spondents, news collectors, and occasional contrib- 



HJickens* XonOon 65 

utors. These by courtesy were commonly referred 
to as the intellectual workers. For the rest, com- 
positors, pressmen, mechanics, clerks, et al., were of 
a class distinct in themselves. The perfecting press 
had just come into practical use, and though the 
process must appear laboriously slow to-day when 
only 2,500 perfected copies of a four-page paper 
were turned out in an hour, The Times was in 
its day at the head of the list as to organization, 
equipment, and influence. 

The other morning and evening papers, The Post, 
The Advertiser, The Globe, The Standard, The 
Morning Chronicle, and The Sun, all had similar 
establishments though on a smaller scale. 

But two exclusively literary papers were issued 
in 1840 — The Literary Gazette and The Athe- 
nceum, the latter being to-day the almost universal 
mentor and guide for the old-school lover of lit- 
erature throughout the world. The Spectator was 
the most vigorous of the weekly political and social 
papers, now sadly degenerated, and Bell's Life in 
London, which had printed some of Dickens' earlier 
work, was the only nominal " sporting paper." 
Church papers, trade papers, society papers, and 
generally informative journals were born, issued for 
a time, then died in those days as in the present. 

Punch was, and is, the most thoroughly repre- 



66 BicKens' Xonbon 

sentative British humourous journal, and since its 
birth in the forties has been domiciled in Bouverie 
Street, just off the main thoroughfare of Fleet 
Street. 

The literary production in this vast workshop 
in point of bulk alone is almost beyond compre- 
hension. In 1869, a year before Dickens' death, 
there were published in London alone three hundred 
and seventy-two magazines and serials, seventy-two 
quarterlies, and two hundred and ninety-eight news- 
papers, etc. 

As for the golden days of the " Highway of 
Letters," they were mostly in the glorious past, 
but, in a way, they have continued to this day. A 
brief review of some of the more important names 
and events connected with this famous street will, 
perhaps, not be out of place here. 

Among the early printers and booksellers were 
Wynken de Worde, "at ye signe of ye Sonne;" 
Richard Pynson, the title-pages or colophons of 
whose works bore the inscription, " emprynted by 
me Richard Pynson at the temple barre of London 
(1493);" Rastell, "at the sign of the Star;" 
Richard Tottel, " within Temple-bar, at the signe 
of the Hande and Starre," which in Dickens' day 
had become the shop of a low bookseller by the 
name oi Butterworth, who it was said still held the 



Dtcftens* Xon^on 67 

original leases. Others who printed and published 
in the vicinity were W. Copeland, " at the signe of 
the Rose Garland; " Bernard Lintot, " at the Cross 
Keys;" Edmund Curll, "at the Dial and Bible," 
and Lawton Gulliver, " at Homer's Head," against 
St. Dunstan's Church; and Jacob Robinson, on the 
west side of the gateway " leading down the Inner 
Temple Lane," an establishment which Dickens 
must have known as Groom's, the confectioner's. 
Here Pope and Warburton first met, and cultivated 
an acquaintanceship which afterward developed into 
as devoted a friendship as ever existed between 
man and man. The fruit of this was the publica- 
tion (in 1739) of a pamphlet which bore the title, 
" A Vindication of Mr. Pope's ' Essay on Man,' 
by the Author of ' The Divine Legation of Moses,' 
printed for J. Robinson." 

At Collins' shop, "at the Black Boy in Fleet 
Street," was published the first " Peerage," while 
other names equally famous were the publishers, 
T. White, H. Lowndes, and John Murray. 

Another trade which was firmly established here 
was the bankers, " Child's," at Temple Bar, being 
the oldest existing banking-house in London to-day. 
Here Richard Blanchard and Francis Child, "at 
the Marygold in Fleet Street," — who were gold- 
smiths with " running cashes" — were first estab- 



68 2)tcftens' Xont)on 

lished in the reign of Charles 11. " In the hands 
of Mr. Blanchard, goldsmith, next door to Temple 
Bar," Dryden deposited his £50 received for the 
discovery of the " bullies " by whom Lord Roches- 
ter had been barbarously assaulted in Covent Garden. 

Another distinctive feature of Fleet Street was 
the taverns and coffee-houses. " The Devil," " The 
King's Head," at the corner of Chancery Lane, 
" The Bolt-in-Tun," " The Horn Tavern," " The 
Mitre," ''The Cock," and "The Rainbow," with 
" Dick's," " Nando's," and " Peel's," at the corner 
of Fetter Lane, — its descendant still existing, — 
completes the list of the most famous of these 
houses of entertainment. 

To go back to a still earlier time, to connect there- 
with perhaps the most famous name of English 
literature, bar Shakespeare, it is recorded that 
Chaucer " once beat a Franciscan friar in Fleet 
Street," and was fined two shillings for the privi- 
lege by the Honourable Society of the Inner Temple. 
As the chroniclers have it : " So Speght heard from 
Master Barkly, who had seen the entry in the rec- 
ords of the Inner Temple." 

A rather gruesome anecdote is recounted by 
Hughson in his " Walks through London " 
(1817), concerning Flower-de-Luce Court (Fleur- 
de-Lis Court), just off Fetter Lane in Fleet Street. 



Dichens' Xon^on 69 

This concerned the notorious Mrs. Brownrigg, who 
was executed in 1767 for the murder of Mary Qif- 
ford, her apprentice. " The grating from which the 
cries of the poor child issued " being still existent 
at the time when Hughson wrote and presumably 
for some time after. Canning, in imitation of 
Southey, recounts it thus in verse: 

"... Dost thou ask her crime ? 
She whipp'd two female 'prentices to death, 
And hid them in the coal-hole. For this act 
Did Brownrigg swing. Harsh laws ! But time shall come, 
When France shall reign and laws be all repeal'd." 

Which gladsome (?) day has fortunately not yet 
come. 

No resume of the attractions of Fleet Street can 
well be made without some mention of White- 
friars, that region comprehended between the 
boundaries of the Temple on one side, and where 
once was the Fleet Ditch on the other. Its present 
day association with letters mostly has to do with 
journalism, Carmelite Street, Whitefriars Street, 
and other lanes and alleys of the immediate neigh- 
bourhood being given over to the production of the 
great daily and weekly output of printed sheets. 
This ancient precinct formerly contained the old 
church of the White Friars, a community known 
in full as Fratres Beatce Maries de Mont Carmeli. 



70 H)icftens' Xon£)on 

Founded by Sir Richard Grey in 1241, the church 
was surrendered at the Reformation, and the Hall 
was made into the first Whitefriars Theatre, and 
the precinct newly named Alsatia, celebrated in 
modern literature by Scott in the " Fortunes of 
Nigel." " The George Tavern," mentioned in Shad- 
well's play, " The Squire of Alsatia," became later 
the printing shop of one Bowyer, and still more 
recently the printing establishment oi Messrs. Brad- 
bury and Evans, the publishers and proprietors of 
Punch, which building was still more recently re- 
moved for the present commodious structure occu- 
pied by this firm. In Dickens' time it was in part 
at least the old " George Tavern." It is singular 
perhaps that Dickens' connection with the famous 
" Round Table " of Punch was not more intimate 
than it was. It is not known that a single article 
of his was ever printed in its pages, though it is 
to be presumed he contributed several, and one at 
least is definitely acknowledged. 

Ram Alley and Pye Corner were here in Alsatia, 
the former a passage between the Temple and Ser- 
geant's Inn, which existed until recently. 

Mitre Court is perhaps the most famous and 
revered of all the purlieus of Fleet Street. " The 
Mitre Tavern," or rather a reminiscence of it, much 
frequented by the London journalist of to-day and 



Dtcftens' Xon^on 71 

of Dickens' time, still occupies the site of a former 
structure which has long since disappeared, where 
Johnson used to drink his port, and where he made 
his famous remark to Ogilvie with regard to the 
noble prospects of Scotland : " I believe, sir, you 
have a great many; but, sir, let me tell you, I 
believe, sir, you have a great many . . . but, sir, 
let me tell you the noblest prospect which a Scotch- 
man ever sees is the highroad that leads him to 
England." 

Of all the old array of taverns of Fleet Street, 
" The Cock " most recently retained a semblance, 
at least, of its former characteristics, which recalls 
one of Tennyson's early poems, " A MIonologue 
of Will Waterproof," which has truly immortalized 
this house of refreshment: 

" Thou plump head-waiter at the Cock 
To which I must resort, 
How goes the time f Is^t nine o'clock f 
Then fetch a pint of port ^ 

Salisbury Court, or Salisbury Square as it has 
now become, is another of those literary suburbs of 
Fleet Street — if one may so call it — where mod- 
ern literature was fostered and has prospered. It 
occupies the courtyard of Salisbury or Dorset 
House. Betterton, Cave, and Sandford, the actors, 



72 



Bicftens' XonDon 



lived here; Shadwell, Lady Davenant, the widow 
of the laureate; Dryden and Richardson also. In- 
deed Richardson wrote " Pamela " here, and Gold- 
smith was his " press corrector." 



DICKENS' CONTEMPORARIES 

JT TT ^}iiE'N Scott was at the height of his pop- 
m^m^ ularity and reputation, cultivated and 
imaginative prose was but another ex- 
pression of the older poesy. But within twenty-five 
years of Scott's concluding fictions, Dickens and 
Thackeray, and still later, George Eliot and Kings- 
ley, had come intO' the mart with an entirely new 
brand of wares, a development unknown to Scott, 
and of a tendency which was to popularize litera- 
ture far more than the most sanguine hopes of even 
Scott's own ambition. 

There was more warmth, geniality, and general 
good feeling expressed in the printed page, and the 
people — that vast public which must ever make or 
mar literary reputations, if they are to be financially 
successful ones, which, after all, is the standard by 
which most reputations are valued — were ready 
and willing to support what was popularly supposed 
to stand for the spread of culture. 

Biographers and critics have been wont to attrib- 
ute this wide love for literature to the influence of 

73 



74 2)icftens' Xont)on 

Scott. Admirable enough this influence was, to be 
sure, and the fact is that since his time books have 
been more pleasingly frank, candid, and generous. 
But it was not until Dickens appeared, with his 
almost immediate and phenomenal success, that the 
real rage for the novel took form. 

The first magazine. The Gentleman's, and the 
first review. The Edinburgh, were contemporary 
with Scott's productions, and grew up quite inde- 
pendently, of course, but their development was 
supposed, rightly or wrongly, tO' be coincident with 
the influences which were set in motion by the pub- 
lication of Scott's novels. Certainly they were sent 
broadcast, and their influence was widespread, like- 
wise Scott's devotees, but his books were " hard 
reading " for the masses nevertheless, and his most 
ardent champion could hardly claim for him a tithe 
of the popularity which came so suddenly to Charles 
Dickens. 

"Pickwick Papers" (1837) appeared only six 
years later than Scott's last works, and but eight 
years before Thackeray's " Vanity Fair." It was, 
however, a thing apart from either, with the defects 
and merits of its author's own peculiar and ener- 
getic style. 

Jealousies and bickerings there doubtless were, 
in those days, as ever, among literary folk, but 



2)icften6' XonDon 75 

though there may have been many who were envi- 
ous, few were impoHte or unjust enough not to 
recognize the new expression which had come among 
them. One can well infer this by recalling the fact 
that Thackeray himself, at a Royal Academy ban- 
quet, had said that he was fearful of what " Pick- 
wick's " reputation might have been had he suc- 
ceeded in getting the commission, afterward given 
to Seymour, to illustrate the articles. 

There appears to have been, at one time, some 
misunderstanding between Dickens and his pub- 
lishers as to who really was responsible for the 
birth of " Pickwick," one claim having been made 
that Dickens was only commissioned to write up 
Seymour's drawings. This Dickens disclaimed em- 
phatically in the preface written to a later edition, 
citing the fact that Seymour only contributed the 
few drawings to the first serial part, unfortunately 
dying before any others were even put in hand. 

There is apparently some discrepancy bet\yeen the 
varying accounts of this incident, but Dickens prob- 
ably had the right of it, though the idea of some 
sort of a " Nimrod Club," which afterward took 
Dickens' form in the " Pickwickians," was thought 
of between his publishers and Seymour. In fact, 
among others, besides Dickens, who were consid- 



76 Dicftens' Xont)on 

ered as being able to do the text, were Theodore 
Hook, Leigh Hunt, and Tom Hood. 

As originally planned, it was undoubtedly a piece 
of what is contemptuously known as hack work. 
What it afterward became, under Dickens' master- 
ful power, all the parties concerned, and the wodd 
in general, know full well. 

The statement that Dickens is "out of date," 
" not read now," or is " too verbose," is by the 
mark when his work is compared with that of his 
contemporaries. In a comparative manner he is 
probably very much read, and very well read, too, 
for that matter. Far more so, doubtless, than most 
of his contemporaries ; certainly before George 
Eliot, Wilkie Collins, Bulwer, or even Carlyle or 
Thackeray. 

The very best evidence of this, if it is needed, 
is to recall to what great extent familiarity with 
the works of Dickens has crept into the daily life 
of " the people," who more than ever form the great 
majority of readers. 

True, times and tastes have changed from even 
a quarter of a century ago. Fashions come and go 
with literature, novels in particular, as with all else, 
and the works of Dickens, as a steady fare, would 
probably pall on the most enthusiastic of his ad- 
mirers. On the other hand, he would be a dull per- 



I 



2)icften8' Xon&on 77 

son indeed who could see no humour in " Pick- 
wick," whatever his age, creed, or condition. 

Admirers of the great noveHst have been well 
looked after in respect to editions of his works. 
New ones follow each other nowadays in an ex- 
traordinarily rapid succession, and no series of clas- 
sics makes its appearance without at least three or 
four of Dickens' works finding places in its list. 

In England alone there have been twenty-four 
complete copyright editions, from " the cheap edi- 
tion," first put upon the market in 1847, to the 
dainty and charming India paper edition printed 
at the Oxford University Press in 190 1. 

" In the Athenaeum Club," says Mr. Percy Fitz- 
gerald, " where many a pleasant tradition is pre- 
served, we may see at a window a table facing the 
United Service Club at which Dickens was fond 
of having his lunch. ... In the hall by the coats 
(after their Garrick quarrel), Dickens and Thack- 
eray met, shortly before the latter's death. A mo- 
ment's hesitation, and Thackeray put out his hand 
. . . and they were reconciled." 

It has been said, and justly, that Thackeray — 
Dickens' contemporary, not rival — had little of 
the topographical instinct which led to no small 
degree of Dickens' fame. It has, too, been further 
claimed that Thackeray was in debt to Dickens for 



78 2)icften6' XonDon 

having borrowed such expressions as " the opposite 
side of Goszvell Street was over the way." And 
such suggestions as the " Two jackals of Lord 
Steyne and Mess. Wegg and Wenham, reminis- 
cent of Pike and Pluck, and Sedley's native servant, 
who was supposed to have descended from Bag- 
stock's menial." Much more of the same sort might 
be recounted, all of which, if it is true, is perhaps 
no sin, but rather a compliment. 

The relics and remains of Dickens exist to a re- 
markable degree of numbers. As is well known, 
the omnific American collector is yearly, nay daily, 
acquiring many oi those treasures of literature and 
art which the old world has treasured for genera- 
tions; to the gratification of himself and the pride 
of his country, though, be it said, to the discon- 
cem of the Briton. 

The American, according to his English cousin, 
it seems, has a pronounced taste for acquiring the 
rarest of Dickens' books, and the choicest of Dick- 
ens' holographs, and his most personal relics. 

The committee of the " Dickens Fellowship," 
a newly founded institution to perpetuate "the nov- 
elist's name and fame, recently sought to bring to- 
gether in an exhibition held in Memorial Hall, Lon- 
don, as many of those souvenirs as possible; and 



2)ichens' XonC)on 79 

a very attractive and interesting show it proved 
to be. 

The catalogue of this exhibition, however, had 
tacked on to it this significant note: "The Com- 
mittee's quest for hterary memorabiHa of the im- 
mortal ' Boz ' indicates the distressing fact that 
many of the rarest items are lost to us for 
ever." 

All of which goes again to show that the great 
interest of Americans in the subject is, in a way, 
the excuse for being of this monograph on London 
during the life and times of Dickens. 

Various exhibitions of Dickens' manuscripts 
have been publicly held in London from time to 
time, at The Exhibition of the Works of the Eng- 
lish Humourists in 1889, at the Victorian Exhibi- 
tion of 1897, and the British Museum has generally 
on show, in the " King's Library," a manuscript 
or two of the novels ; there are many more always 
to be seen in the " Dyce and Forster Collection " 
at South Kensington. Never, before the exhibition 
held in 1902 by the " Dickens Fellowship," has 
there been one absolutely restricted to Dickens. 

It is, of course, impossible to enumerate the vari- 
ous items, and it would not be meet that the at- 
tempt should be made here. It will be enough to 
say that among the many interesting numbers was 



8o Dickens* XonDon 

the first poirtion of an unpublished travesty on 
" Othello," written in 1833, before the first pub- 
lished " Boz " sketch, and a hitherto unknown (to 
experts) page of " Pickwick," this one fragment 
being valued, says the catalogue, at £150 sterling. 
First editions, portraits, oil paintings, miniatures, 
and what not, and autographs were here in great 
numbers, presentation copies of Dickens' books, 
given to his friends, and autographs and portraits 
of his contemporaries, as well as the original 
sketches of illustrations to the various works by 
Seymour, " Phiz," Cruikshank, Stone, Leech, Bar- 
nard, and Pailthorpe, not forgetting a reference to 
the excellent work of our own Darley, and latterly 
Charles Dana Gibson. 

Among the most interesting items of contem- 
porary interest in this exhibition, which may be 
classed as unique, were presentation copies of the 
novels made to friends and acquaintances by Dick- 
ens himself. 

Among them were " David Copperfield," a pres- 
entation copy to the Hon. Mrs. Percy Fitzgerald; 
" Oliver Twist," with the following inscription on 
the title-page, " From George Cruikshank to H. W. 
Brunton, March 19, 1872;" "A Child's History of 
England," with an autograph letter to Marcus 
Stone, R. A. ; "A Tale of Two Cities," presented 



Dicftens* Xont)on 8i 

to Mrs. Macready, with autograph ; " The Chimes " 
(Christmas Book, 1845), containing a unique im- 
pression of Leech's illustration thereto. 

Other interesting and valuable ana were the 
Visitors' Book of " Watts' Charity," at Rochester, 
containing the signatures of " C. D." and Mark 
Lemon; the quill pen belonging to Charles Dickens, 
and used by him just previous to his death; a 
paper-knife formerly belonging to " C. D.," and the 
writing-desk used by " C. D." on his last American 
tour; silver wassail-bowl and stand presented to 
" C. D." by members of the Philosophical Institu- 
tion of Edinburgh in 1858; walking-stick formerly 
belonging to " C. D. ; " a screen belonging to Moses 
Pickwick, of Bath — the veritable Moses Pickwick 
of Chap. XXXV. of " Pickwick Papers ; " the oak 
balustrade from the old " White Hart " (pulled 
down in 1889) ; pewter tankards from various of 
the Pickwickian Inns; the entrance door oi New- 
gate Prison, of which mention is made in " Barnaby 
Rudge," Chap. LXIV. ; warrant officer's staff, 
formerly in use in the Marshalsea Prison; original 
sign of " The Little Wooden Midshipman " 
(" Dombey and Son "), formerly over the doorway 
of Messrs. Norie and Wilson, the nautical publish- 
ers in the Minories. This varied collection, of 
which the above is only a mere selection, together 



82 Bicftens' Xon^on 

with such minor personalia as had been preserved 
by friends and members of the family, formed a 
highly interesting collection of Dickens' reliques, 
and one whose like will hardly be got together again. 

Innumerable portraits, photographs, lithographs, 
and drawings of the novelist were included, as well 
as of his friends and contemporaries. 

Letters and docum.ents referring to Dickens' re- 
lations with Shirley Brooks, Richard Bentley, Hab- 
lot K. Browne, Frederic Chapman, J. P. Harley, 
Mark Lemon, Samuel Rogers, Newby, John Fors- 
ter, David Maclise, and many others, mostly un- 
published, were shown, and should form a valuable 
fund of material for a biographer, should he be 
inclined to add to Dickens' literature of the day, 
and could he but have access to and the privilege of 
reprinting them. 

A word on the beginnings of what is commonly 
called serial literature is pertinent to the subject. 
The first publication with which Dickens' identity 
was solely connected was the issue of " Pickwick " 
in monthly parts in 1836-37. 

A literary critic, writing in 1849, ^^^ ^^^^ to say 
on the matter in general, with a further reference to 
the appearance of " David Copperfield," whose au- 
thor was the chief and founder of the serial novel : 

" The small library which issues from the press on 



H>icftens* Xonbon 83 

the first of every month is a new and increasing 
fashion in literature, which carves out works into 
sHces and serves them up in fresh portions twelve 
times in the year. Prose and poetry, original and se- 
lected, translations and republications, of every class 
and character, are included. The mere enumeration 
of titles would require a vast space, and any attempt 
to analyze the contents, or to estimate the influence 
which the class exerts upon the literary taste of the 
day would expand into a volume of itself. As an 
event of importance must be mentioned the appear- 
ance of the first number of a new story, ' David 
Copperfield,' by Charles Dickens. His rival hu- 
mourist, Mr. Thackeray, has finished one and begun 
another O'f his domestic histories within the twelve- 
month, his new story, * Pendennis,' having jour- 
neyed seven-twentieths of the way to completion. 
Mr. Lever rides double with ' Roland Cashel ' and 
* Con Cregan,' making their punctual appearance 
upon the appointed days. Of another order is Mr. 
Jerrold's ' Man Made of Money.' Incidents are 
of little consequence to this author, except by way 
of pegs to hang reflections and conclusions upon. 
" Passing over the long list of magazines and re- 
views as belonging to another class of publication, 
there is a numerous series of reprints, new editions, 
etc., issued in monthly parts, and generally in a 



84 Dicftens' XonC>on 

cheap and compendious form. Shakespeare and 
Byron among the poets, Bulwer, Dickens, and 
James among the noveHsts, appear pretty regularly, 
— the poets being enriched with notes and illustra- 
tions. Other writers and miscellaneous novels find 
republication in the ' Parlour Library of Fiction,' 
with so rigid an application of economy that for 
two shillings we may purchase a guinea and a half's 
worth of the most popular romances at the original 
price of publication. Besides the works of imagina- 
tion, and above them in value, stand Knight's series 
of ' Monthly Volumes,' M'urray's ' Home and Colo- 
nial Library,' and the ' Scientific ' and ' Literary Li- 
braries ' of Mr. Bohn. The contents of these collec- 
tions are very diversified; many volumes are alto- 
gether original, and others are new translations of 
foreign works, or modernized versions of antiquarian 
authors. A large mass of the most valuable works 
contained in our literature may be found in Mr. 
Bohn's ' Library.' The class of publications intro^ 
duced in them all partakes but little of the serial 
character. It is only the form of their appearance 
which gives them a place among the periodicals." 

In the light of more recent events and tendencies, 
this appears to have been the first serious attempt 
to popularize and broaden the sale of literature to 
any considerable extent, and it may be justly in- 



2)tchens' XontJon 85 

ferred that the cheap " Libraries," " Series," and 
" Reprints " of the present day are but an outgrowth 
therefrom. 

As for Dickens' own share in this development, 
it is only necessary to recall the demand which has 
for many years existed for the original issues of 
such of the novels as appeared in parts. The earli- 
est issues were: "The Pickwick Papers," in 20 
parts, 1836-37, which contained the two suppressed 
Buss plates ; " Nicholas Nickleby," in 20 parts, 
1838-39; "Master Humphrey's Clock," in 88 
weekly numbers, 1840-41 ; " Master Humphrey's 
Clock," in 20 monthly parts, 1840-41 ; " Martin 
Chuzzlewit," in 20 parts, 1843-44; " Oliver Twist," 
in 10 octavo parts, 1846. 

At the time when " Oliver Twist " had scarce 
begun, Dickens was already surrounded by a large 
circle of literary and artistic friends and acquaint- 
ances. His head might well have been turned by 
his financial success, many another might have been 
so affected. His income at this time (1837-38) 
was supposed to have increased from £400 to £2,000 
per annum, surely an independent position, were 
it an assured one for any litterateur of even the first 
rank, of Dickens' day or of any other. 

In November of 1837 " Pickwick " was finished, 
and the event celebrated by a dinner " at the Prince 



86 Dicftens' Xon^on 

of Wales " in Leicester Place, off Leicester Square. 
To this function Dickens had invited Talfourd, 
Forster, Macready, Harrison Ainsworth, Jerdan, 
Edward Chapman, and William Hall. 

Dickens' letter to Macready was in part as fol- 
lows: 

" It is to celebrate (that is too great a word, 
but I can think o>f no better) the conclusion of my 
* Pickwick ' labours ; and so I intend, before you 
take that roll upon the grass you spoke of, to beg 
your acceptance oi one of the first complete copies 
of the work. I shall be much delighted if you would 
join us." 

Of " Nicholas Nickleby," written in 1838-39, 
Sydney Smith, one of its many detractors, finally 
succumbed and admitted : " ' Nickleby ' is very good 
— I held out against Dickens as long as I could, but 
he has conquered me." 

Shortly after the " Pickwick " dinner, and after 
the death of his wife's sister Mary, who lived with 
them, Dickens, his wife, and " Phiz," — Hablot 
K. Browne, — the illustrator of " Pickwick," jour- 
neyed together abroad for a brief time. On his 
return, Dickens first made acquaintance with the 
seaside village of Broadstairs, where his memory 
still lives, preserved by an ungainly structure yclept 
" Bleak House." 






4 w^d^t^- n 



4' 







:rx 






CHARLES DICKENS, HIS WIFE, AND SISTER 
GEORGINA. 

From a pencil draiviitg by D. lilaclise. 



H)icftens* XonOon 87 

It may be permissible here to make further men- 
tion of Broadstairs. The town itself formed the 
subject O'f a paper which he wrote for Household 
Words in 185 1, while as to the structure known as 
" Bleak House," it formed, as beforesaid, his resi- 
dence for a short time in 1843. 

Writing to an American friend, Professor Felton, 
at that time, he said : 

" In a bay-window in a * one pair ' sits, from 
nine o'clock to one, a gentleman with rather long 
hair and n© neckcloth, who writes and grins as if 
he thought he were very funny indeed. His name 
is Boz. . . . He is brown as a berry, and they do 
say is a small fortune to the innkeeper who sells 
beer and cold punch. . . ." 

Altogether a unique and impressive pen-portrait, 
and being from the hand of one who knew his 
sitter, should be considered a truthful one. 

In 1843 Maclise made that remarkable and win- 
some pencil sketch of Dickens, his wife, and his 
sister Georgina, one of those fleeting impressions 
which, for depicting character and sentiment, is 
worth square yards of conventional portraiture, and 
which is reproduced here out of sheer admiration 
for its beauty and power as a record intime. It 
has been rather coarsely referred to in the past as 
Maclise's sketch of " Dickens and his pair of petti- 



88 2)tcftens' Xon^on 

coats," but we let that pass by virtue O'f its own 
sweeping condemnation, — oi its being anything 
more than a charming and intimate record of a 
fleeting period in the noveHst's hfe, too soon to go 

— never to return. 

Dickens' connection with the Daily Nezvs was 
but of brief duration; true, his partisans have tried 
to prove that it was under his leadership that it 
was launched upon its career. This is true in a 
measure, — he was its first editor, — but his tenure 
of office only lasted " three short weeks." 

He was succeeded in the editorial chair by his 
biographer, Forster. 

The first number came out on January 21, 1846, 

— a copy in the recent " Dickens Fellowship Exhi- 
bition " (London, 1903) bore the following inscrip- 
tion in Mrs. Dickens' autograph : " Brought home 
by Charles at two o'clock in the morning. — Cath- 
erine Dickens. January 21." Thus it is that 
each issue of a great newspaper is bom, or made, 
though the use of the midnight oil which was 
burned on this occasion was no novelty to Charles 
Dickens himself. The issue in question contained 
the first of a series of " Travelling Sketches — 
Written on the Road," which were afterward pub- 
lished in book form as " Pictures from Italy." 

A unique circumstance of contemporary interest 



S)icf?ens' Xon&on 89 

to Americans occurred during Dickens' second 
visit to America (1868) in "The Great Interna- 
tional Walking Match." A London bookseller at 
the present time (1903) has in his possession the 
original agreement between George Dolby (British 
subject), alias "The Man of Ross," and James 
Ripley Osgood, alias " The Boston Bantam," 
wherein Charles Dickens, described as " The Gad's 
Hill Gasper," is made umpire. 

One of the most famous and interesting portraits 
of Dickens was that made in pencil by Sir John 
Millais, A. R. A., in 1870. This was the last pre- 
sentment of the novelist, in fact, a posthumous 
portrait, and its reproduction was for a long time 
not permitted. The original hangs in the parlour 
of " The Leather Bottle," at Cobham, given to the 
present proprietor by the Rev. A. H. Berger, M. A., 
Vicar of Cobham. Among other famous portraits 
of Dickens were those by Ary Scheffer, 1856; a 
miniature on ivory by Mrs. Barrow, 1830; a pencil 
study by " Phiz," 1837; a chalk drawing by Samuel 
Lawrence, 1838; "The Captain Boabdil " portrait 
by Leslie, 1846; an oil portrait by W. P. Frith, 
R. A., 1859; a pastel portrait by J. G. Gersterhauer, 
1861 ; and a chalk drawing by E. G. Lewis, 1869. 
This list forms a chronology of the more important 
items of Dickens portraiture from the earliest to 



9° 2)icl?ens' Xon^on 

that taken after his death, subsequent to which was 
made a plaster cast, from which Thomas Woolner, 
R. A., modelled the bust portrait. 

The " Boz Club," founded in 1899 ^Y ^^- Percy 
Fitzgerald, one of Dickens' " bright young men " 
in association with him in the conduct of House- 
hold Words was originally composed of members 
of the Athenseum Club, of whom the following 
knew Dickens personally. Lord James of Hereford, 
Mr. Marcus Stone, R. A., and Mr. Luke Fildes, 
R. A., who', with others, foregathered for the pur- 
pose of dining together and keeping green the 
memory of the novelist. 

Its membership has since been extended to em- 
brace the following gentlemen, who also had the 
pleasure and gratification of acquaintanceship with 
Dickens: the Marquis of Dufferin and Ava (since 
died), Lord Brompton, Hamilton Aide, Alfred 
Austin, Sir Squire Bancroft, Arthur a Beckett, 
Francesco Berger, Henry Fielding Dickens, K. C, 
Edward Dicy, C. B., W. P. Frith, R. A., William 
Farrow, Otto Goldschmidt, John Hollingshead, the 
Very Reverend Dean Hole, Sir Henry Irving, 
Frederick A. Inderwick, K. C, Sir Herbert Jerning- 
ham, K. C, M. G., Charles Kent, Fred'k G. Kitton, 
Moy Thomas, Right Honourable Sir Arthur Otway, 
Bart., Joseph C. Parkinson, George Storey, A. R. A., 



Bicftens' Xon&on 91 

J. Ashby Sterry, and Right Honourable Sir H. 
Drummond Wolfe. 

Perhaps the most whole-souled endorsement of 
the esteem with which Dickens was held among 
his friends and contemporaries was contributed to 
the special Dickens' memorial number of House- 
hold Words by Francesco Berger, who composed 
the incidental music which accompanied Wilkie 
Collins' play, " The Frozen Deep," in which Dick- 
ens himself appeared in 1857: 

" I saw a great deal of Charles Dickens personally 
for many years. He was always most genial and 
most hearty, a man whose friendship was of the 
warmest possible character, and who put his whole 
soul into every pursuit. He was most generous, 
and his household was conducted on a very liberal 
scale. 

" I consider that, if not the first, he was among 
the first, who went out of the highways into the 
byways to discover virtue and merit of every kind 
among the lower classes, and found romance in 
the lowest ranks of life. 

" I regard Dickens as the greatest social reformer 
in England I have ever known outside politics. 
His works have tended to revolutionize for the 
better our law courts, our prisons, our hospitals. 



93 Dicftens' Xon&on 

our schools, our workhouses, our government of- 
fices, etc. 

" He was a fearless exposer of cant in every 
direction, — religious, social, and political." 

Such was the broad-gauge estimate of one who 
knew Dickens well. It may unquestionably be ac- 
cepted as his greatest eulogy. 

None of Dickens' contemporaries are more re- 
membered and revered than the illustrators of his 
stories. Admitting all that can possibly be said 
oif the types which we have come to recognize as 
being " Dickenesque," he would be rash who would 
affirm that none of their success was due to their 
pictorial delineation. 

Dickens himself has said that he would have 
preferred that his stories were not illustrated, but, 
on the other hand, he had more than usual concern 
with regard thereto when the characters were tak- 
ing form under the pencils of Seymour, Cruikshank, 
or " Phiz," or even the later Barnard, than whom, 
since Dickens' death, has there ever been a more 
sympathetic illustrator ? 

The greatest of these was undoubtedly George 
Cruikshank, whose drawings for " Oliver Twist," 
the last that he did for Dickens' writings, were 
perhaps more in keeping with the spirit of Dickens' 
text than was the work of any of the others, not 



Dtcftens' Xon&on 93 

excepting the immortal character of Pickwick, 
which conception is accredited to Seymour, who 
unfortunately died before he had completed the 
quartette of drawings for the second number of 
the serial. 

In this same connection it is recalled that the idea 
of recounting the adventures of a " club of Cockney 
sportsmen " was conceived by the senior partner of 
the firm of Chapman and Hall, and that Dickens 
was only thought of at first as being the possible 
author, in connection, among others, with Leigh 
Hunt and Theodore Hook. 

On the death of Seymour, one R. W. Buss, a 
draughtsman on wood, was commissioned to con- 
tinue the " Pickwick " illustrations, and he actually 
made two etchings, which, in the later issues, were 
suppressed. " Crowquill," Leech, and Thackeray 
all hoped to fill the vacancy, but the fortunate appli- 
cant was Hablot K. Browne, known in connection 
with his work for the Dickens stories as " Phiz." 
This nom de plume was supposed to have been 
adopted in order to harmonize with " Boz." 

" Phiz " in time became known as the artist- 
in-chief, and he it was who made the majority of 
illustrations for the tales, either as etchings or 
wood-blocks. His familiar signature identifies his 
work to all who are acquainted with Dickens. 



94 2)icftens' Xon5on 

George Cattermole supplied the illustrations to *' The 
Old Curiosity Shop " and " Barnaby Rudge." Of 
these Dickens has said " that it was the very first 
time that any of the designs for which he had 
written had touched him." Marcus Stone, R. A., 
provided the pictures for " Our Mutual Friend." 

John Leech, of Punch fame, in one of his illustra- 
tions to " The Battle of Life," one of the shorter 
pieces, made the mistake of introducing a wrong 
character into one of the drawings, and a still more 
pronounced error was in the Captain Cuttle plates, 
where the iron hook appears first on the left and 
then on the right arm of the subject. 

Leech illustrated the " Christmas Carol " com- 
plete, including the coloured plates, and shared in 
contributing to the other Yule-tide stories. 

Of the leading artists who contributed the illus- 
trations to Dickens' writings during his lifetime, 
it is notable that three were " Royal Academicians," 
— Stanfield, Maclise, and Landseer, — one an " As- 
sociate of the Royal Academy," and, besides those 
already mentioned, there were in addition Richard 
(Dicky) Doyle, John Leech, and (now Sir) John 
Tenniel, Luke Fildes, and Sir Edwin Landseer, 
who did one drawing only, that for " Boxer," the 
carrier-dog, in " The Cricket on the Hearth." On- 
wyn, Crowquill, Sibson, Kenney Meadows, and F. 



Bicftens* Xonbon 95 

W. Pailthorpe complete the list of those artists 
best known as contemporary with Dickens. 

In creating the characters of his novels, as is 
well known, Dickens often drew upon his friends 
and acquaintances as models, and seldom did these 
effigies give oiffence. On one occasion the reverse 
was the case, as in " Bleak House," which was 
issued in 1857. Boythorne, who was drawn from 
his friend Landor, and Skimpole, from Leigh Hunt, 
were presumably so pertinent caricatures of the 
originals that they were subsequently modified in 
consequence. 

Another incident of more than unusual impor- 
tance, though not strictly dealing with any of Dick- 
ens' contemporaries, is a significant incident relat- 
ing to the living worth of his work. It is related 
that when Bismarck and Jules Favre met under 
the walls of Paris, the former waiting to open fire 
upon the city, the latter was seen to be busily en- 
grossed, quite oblivious oi the situation, devouring 
" Little Dorrit." The story may be taken for what 
it appears to be worth; it is doubtful if it could be 
authenticated, but it serves to indicate the wide- 
spread and absorbing interest of the novels, and 
serves again to indicate that the power of the novel 
in general is one that will relax the faculties and 



9^ Bichens' XonDon 

provide the stimulus which an active brain often 
fails to find otherwise. 

Dickens had dedicated to Carlyle " Hard Times," 
which appeared as early as 1854, and paid a still 
further tribute to the Scotch genius when, in 1859, 
he had begun " A Tale O'f Two Cities." 

In it he hoped to add something to the popular 
and picturesque means of understanding the terrible 
time of the French Revolution ; " though no one," 
he said, " could hope to add anything to the philos- 
ophy of Carlyle's wonderful book." To-day it is 
one of the most popular and most read of all his 
works. 

Dickens died on the 9th of June, 1870, leaving 
*' Edwin Drood " unfinished. What he had written 
of it appeared in the usual green paper parts and 
afterward in volume form. In October, 1871, a 
continuation entitled " John Jasper's Secret " began 
to appear, and occupied eight monthly parts, pro- 
duced uniformly with " Drood ; " and recently a 
gentleman in Holland sent the publishers — Messrs. 
Chapman and Hall — a completion written by him- 
self. There were other attempts of this nature, but 
Dickens' book must always remain as he left it. 

That a reference to the " Poets' Corner " in West- 
minster Abbey might properly be included in a sec- 



H)ickens' XonOon 



97 



tion of this book devoted to the contemporaries of 
Charles Dickens, no one perhaps will deny. 

It seems fitting, at least, that it should be men- 
tioned here rather than elsewhere, in that the work 



s < ' : 4 > ? s : I 

I'nmi I riiim 

I . try 5 i ! 5 ' ! .' f " 



III 

5 TRANSEPT 







f>0 e TS CORNC <« 



does not pretend to be a categorical guide to even 
the more important sights of London, but merely 
that it makes mention of those sights and scenes, 
places and peoples, more or less intimately asso- 
ciated with the great novelist. 

Charles Dickens was buried in Westminster 
Abbey on the 14th June, 1870, since which time 



98 2)tcftens' 3Lon6on 

various other graves have been made, Browning 
and Tennyson notably, and monuments and me- 
morials put into place of Longfellow and Ruskin. 
The Poets' Corner occupies about half of the 
south transept of Westminster Abbey. This fa- 
mous place for the busts and monuments oif eminent 
men includes those of Chaucer, Spencer, Shake- 
speare, Drayton, Ben Jonson, Milton, Butler, Dav- 
enant, Cowley, Dryden, Prior, Rowe, Gay, Addison, 
Thomson, Goldsmith, Gray, Mason, Sheridan, 
Southey, Campbell, etc. Lord Macaulay and Lord 
Palmerston were buried here in i860 and 1865. 
Thackeray is not buried here, but at Kensal Green, 
though his bust is placed next to the statue of Joseph 
Addison. Dickens' grave is situated at the foot of 
the cofifin of Handel, and at the head of the coffin of 
R. B. Sheridan. More recently, Doctor Livingstone, 
the celebrated African traveller, was buried here. 
Near to England's great humourist, toward his feet, 
lie Doctor Johnson and Garrick, while near them 
lies Thomas Campbell. Shakespeare's monument is 
not far from the foot of the grave. Goldsmith's 
is on the left. 



THE LOCALE OF THE NOVELS 

/F one may make legitimate use of the term, 
" the topography of Dickens," — which an 
English writer coined many years since, 
— it may well be indiscriminately applied to Dick- 
ens' own life and that of the characters of his 
stories as well. 

The subject has ever been a favourite one which 
has cropped up from time to time in the " bitty " 
literature of the last quarter of a century. 

To treat it exhaustively would be impossible : the 
changes and progress of the times will not permit 
of this. Nothing would be final, and new shadows 
would constantly be thrown upon the screen. 

Dickens' observation, as is well known, was 
most keen, but he mostly saw only those things 
which, in some degree, actually existed, — towns, 
villages, streets, localities, and public and private 
houses. Not an unusual method of procedure for 
many an author of repute, but few have had the 
finesse to lay on local colour to the extent used by 

99 

LofC. 



loo H)ichen9* Xon^on 

Dickens, without tending toward mere description. 
This no one has ever had the temerity to lay to 
Dickens' door. 

Mention can be made herein oi but a few of the 
locaHties, many of which had existed to very near 
the present day. 

To enumerate or to even attempt to trace them all 
would be practically impossible, but enough has been 
authenticated to indicate a more substantial reality 
than is found in the work of any other modern Eng- 
lish author. 

If one is so minded, he can start out from the very 
hotel, — " The Golden Cross " at Charing Cross, 
— from which Pickwick and Jingle started on their 
coach ride to Rochester, and where Copperfield and 
Steerforth also stayed. The " dark arches of the 
Adelphi," the Temple, and Fountain Court, remain 
much as of yore. 

Fleet Street was well known to Dickens, and has 
changed but little, and Lincoln's Inn Fields, Blooms- 
bury, and many other localities have in reality 
changed not at all in their relation to their environ- 
ment. In matters of detail they have, of course, 
in many instances undergone a certain remoulding, 
which is no greater perhaps than the usual liberties 
taken by the average author. 

Dickens, in the main, changed the surroundings 



Dichens' Xon^on loi 

of his scenes — which he may have given another 
name — but little. 

" Copperfield " is redolent of his own early asso- 
ciations and experiences in London. The neigh- 
bourhood of Charing Cross will be first called to 
mind, Hungerford Market and Hungerford Bridge 
(as the present Charing Cross Railway Bridge is 
often called by the old resident), and the " Adelphi," 
with its gruesome arches beneath, all give more than 
a suggestion of the sights and scenes which met 
Dickens' own eye when his personality was closely 
associated therewith. 

Hence, regardless of whether it is biography or 
pure fiction, there are to-day substantial reminders 
throughout London, not only of his life but of the 
very scenes associated with the characters of his 
novels. More particularly in the early novels, 
"Pickwick," "Nickleby," and "Copperfield," are 
their topographical features to be most readily rec- 
ognized, because, in the first place, they are, pre- 
sumably, the more familiar; and secondly, because 
they are more vividly recalled. 

It is a fact, however, that in Dickens' sketches and 
tales, and in many of his minor works, as, for in- 
stance, in the pages of " Master Humphrey's Clock," 
there are passages especially concerning persons and 
places in London, which to-day have, as then, a 



102 2)tcftcns* XonC>on 

stern reality, referring to such familiar spots as the 
site of the Marshalsea Prison, or " The Old White 
Horse," or Peggotty's Yarmouth home. 

Reality or imagination, — it's all the same, — 
Dickens drew in his pictures, after a veritable fash- 
ion, this too, in spite of the precedent of a former 
generation of authors, who had for ages, one may 
say centuries, tilled the field over and over. But 
it was not until Dickens " arrived " that the reading 
world in general, and wherever found, acquired that 
nodding acquaintance with London which has since 
so redounded to this author's reputation. No such 
acquaintance was previously to be had with the con- 
temporary London life of the middle and lower 
classes, if one may be pardoned for expressing it 
thus confidently. 

The marvel is that some ardent spirit has not 
before now compiled an out-and-out Dickens guide- 
book. One writer, at least, is recalled who is com- 
petent to do it, and he, be it said, is an American, 
Doctor Benjamin S. Martin, who many years ago 
contributed to an American monthly publication a 
series of illuminating articles on what might with 
propriety be called the local colour of Dickens. 
These were the forerunners and foster-parents of 
most of the " scrappy " articles of a similar purport. 



Btchens' XouDon 103 

which appear intermittently in the Enghsh and 
American periodical press. 

The references and descriptions of certain of the 
localities connected with the novels which follow 
are given without attempt at classification or chron- 
ological arrangement. No other plan appears pos- 
sible, where only a selection can be given. As be- 
fore said, the limitations of the bulk of this book 
preclude a more extensive resume.. 

The following references will be found to be 
fully classified in the index which accompanies the 
book, and will perhaps prove suggestive, at least, 
of further research on the part of the individual 
reader. 

Further west, beyond Westminster and the Par- 
liament Houses, is Milbank, where is Church Street, 
running from the river to St. John's Church, West- 
minster, that atrociously ill-mannered church of 
Queen Anne's day, built it is said on the lines of 
a footstool overturned in one of that lady's fits 
of petulant wrath. Down Church Street ran Mar- 
tha, followed by Copperfield and Peggotty, bent on 
suicide. 

Not the slum it was when described by Dickens, 
it is to-day a sufficiently " mean street " to be sug- 
gestive. 



104 Dicftens' XonC)on 

Here too, was Jenny Wren's house, on the left 
going toward the church in Smith Square. 

Vauxhall Bridge, also reminiscent of Dickens, 
is near by, though the structure which formerly 
graced the site has given way to a temporary un- 
gainly thing, which is neither beautiful to look upon 
nor suitable to its purpose. 

In the neighbourhood of Charing Cross, on 
Craven Street, at No. 8, is still the door-knocker 
which so looked, to Marley, like a human face. 

In ChandO'S Street, till within the last eight or 
ten years, were two old-time shops, to which War- 
ren's Blacking Factory removed before the boy 
Dickens left their employ. 

In Chandos Street, too, were the " pudding- 
shop " and " a la mode beef-shop," of which Dick- 
ens made such emphatic mention to his biographer, 
Forster. 

At the corner of Parliament Street and White- 
hall, in Westminster, was, until the beginning of 
the twentieth century, the " Old Red Lion " pub- 
lic house, which calls to mind the episode of " the 
very best stunning ale " in " Copperfield," but which 
is reputedly attributed as actually happening to 
Dickens himself. 

Chancery Lane is largely identified with the story 
of " Bleak House." The garden of Lincoln's Inn 



Dicftens' Xon^on 105 

was fondly referred to by little Miss Flite as " her 
garden." Law offices, stationers' shops, and eating- 
houses abound in the purlieus of Chancery Lane, 
which, though having undergone considerable 
change in the last quarter-century, has still, in 
addition to the majesty which is supposed to sur- 
round the law, something of those " disowned re- 
lations of the law and hangers-on " of which Dick- 
ens wrote. 

In this immediate neighbourhood — in Lincoln's 
Inn Fields — was Mrs. Tulkinghorn's house, of 
which an illustration is here given, and which is 
still standing (1903). This house, which is readily 
found, — it is still No. 58, — is now given over to 
lawyers' offices, though formerly it was the resi- 
dence of Dickens' biographer, Forster, where Dick- 
ens gave what was practically the first of his semi- 
public readings, on the occasion when he came from 
Italy especially to read the " Christmas story," 
" The Chimes," to a few favoured friends. 

Hard by, just off the southwestern corner of the 
square, is the apocryphal " Old Curiosity Shop," a 
notable literary shrine, as is mentioned elsewhere, 
but not the original of the novel which bears the 
same name, as Dickens himself has said. 

The " Clare Market," an unsavoury locality which 
had somewhat to do with " Pickwick," was near 



io6 Dickens' Xon&on 

by, but has practically disappeared from view in 
a virtuous clearing-up process which has recently 
been undertaken. 

In Portugal Street, leading into Lincoln's Inn 
Fields, was Mr. Solomon's headquarters; while 
further east, toward the city, we find the " George 
and Vulture," mentioned in " Pickwick," existing 
to-day as " a very good old-fashioned and comfort- 
able house." Its present nomenclature is " Thomas' 
Chop-House," and he who would partake of the 
" real thing " in good old English fare, served on 
pewter plates, with the brightest of steel knives and 
forks, could hardly fare better than in this ancient 
house in St. Michael's Alley. 

By one of those popular and ofttimes sentimental 
conclusions, " poor Jo's crossing " has been located 
as being on Holborn, near where Chancery Lane 
comes into that thoroughfare. 

This may like enough be so, but as all crossings 
are much alike, and all sweepers of that impover- 
ished class which we recognize in the description of 
"Jo" (now luckily disappearing), it would seem a 
somewhat doubtful accomplishment in attempting 
to place such a spot definitely. 

Mrs. Jellyby lived in Thavie's Inn, — " Only 
'round the corner " from Chancery Lane, said 
Guppy, — one of the seven inns allied with the 



Bichens' XonDon 107 

four great Inns of Court, all of which had a par- 
ticular sentiment for Dickens, both in his writings 
and his life. In fact, he began with " Pickwick " 
to introduce these '' curious little nooks " and 
" queer old places." Indeed, he lived in Furnival's 
Inn when first married, and there wrote the most 
of the " Boz " sketches as well as " Pickwick." 

Clifford's Inn, too, now on the eve of departure, 
is also a reminder of " Pickwick." One, " a tenant 
of a * top set,' was a bad character — shut himself 
in his bedroom closet and took a dose of arsenic," 
as is told in "Pickwick," Chapter XXI. 

To " Mir. Perker's chambers," in Gray's Inn, — 
which still endures as one of the four great Inns 
of Court, — went Mr. Pickwick one afternoon, to 
find no one at home but the laundress. In Hol- 
born Court, in Gray's Inn, lived also Traddles and 
his bride. 

Pip was quartered in Barnard's Inn, called by 
him a " dingy collection of shabby buildings." 

The Temple has ever been prolific in suggestion 
to the novelist, and Dickens, like most others who 
have written of London life, has made liberal use 
of it in " Bamaby Rudge," in " The Tale of Two 
Cities," and in many other of his novels. 

Staple Inn, at " Holborn Bars," is perhaps the 
most quaint and unmodern of any considerable struc- 



io8 Btcftens' XonDon 

ture in all London. Mr. Grewgious and Mr. Tartar 
lived here; also Landless, who occupied " some 
attic rooms in a corner," and here Mr. Snagsbys 
was wont to ramble in this old-world retreat. 

The "little hall," with "a little lantern in its 
roof," and its weathercock, is still there, and the 
stroller down that most businesslike thoroughfare, 
known in its various continuations as " High Hol- 
born," " Holborn Bars," and " Holborn Viaduct/' 
will find it difficult to resist the allurements of the 
crazy old timbered frontage of Staple Inn, with its 
wooden gateway and tiny shops, looking for all the 
world like a picture from out of an old book. 

In Bishop's Court, leading from Chancery Lane, 
was Crook's rag and bottle shop, where its owner 
met so ghastly a death. A court to the back of this 
shop, known as " Chichester Rents," harboured a 
public house called by Dickens " Sol's Arms." To- 
day it exists as the " Old Ship," if supposedly au- 
thoritative opinion has not erred. 

Took's Court is to-day unchanged. Dickens was 
pleased to call it " Cook's Court." By some it has 
been called dirty and dingy; it is hardly that, but 
it may well have been a more sordid looking place 
in days gone by. At any rate, it was a suitable 
enough environment for Snagsbys, identified to-day 
as the stationer's shop next the Imperial Chambers. 



S)icftens' Xon^on 109 

As vivid a reminiscence as any is that of the old 
debtors' prison of Marshalsea. The institution was 
a court of law and a prison as well, and was first 
established in 1376 for the determination of causes 
and differences among the king's menials ; and was 
under the control of the knight marshal, hence its 
name. Later this court had particular cognizance 
of murders and other offences committed within the 
king's court; and here also were committed persons 
guilty of piracies. 

In 1 38 1 the Kentish rebels "broke down the 
houses of the Marshalsea and the King's Bench in 
Southwark," and in 1593 "a dangerous insurrec- 
tion arose in Southwark, owing to the attempt of 
one of the knight marshal's men to serve a warrant 
upon a feltmaker's apprentice." 

At this time the inhabitants of Southwark com- 
plained that " the Knight Marshal's men were very 
unneighbourly and disdainful among them," with 
every indication that a prolonged insurrection would 
endure. However, the matter was brought to the 
attention of the lord chamberlain, and such edict 
went forth as assured the inhabitants of the borough 
freedom from further annoyance. The old gaol 
building was purchased in 181 1 by the govern- 
ment, and at that time refitted as a prison for 
debtors. 



no Dicftens' Xon&on 

" The entrance gate fronts the High Street near 
St. George's Church, and a small area leads to the 
keeper's house. Behind it is a brick building, the 
ground floor of which contains fourteen rooms in 
a double row, and three upper stories, each with 
the same number. They are about ten and a half 
feet square by eight and a half feet high, and are 
with boarded floors, a glazed window, and fireplace 
in each, for male debtors. Nearly adjoining to this 
is a detached building called the ' Tap,' which has 
on the ground floor a wine and beer room. The 
upper story has three rooms for female debtors, 
similar to those for men. At the extremity of this 
prison is a small courtyard and building for ad- 
miralty prisoners, and a chapel." 

The above description, taken from Allen's " His- 
tory and Antiquities of Southwark," must synchro- 
nize with the appearance of the Marshalsea at the 
time of which Dickens wrote concerning it in " Lit- 
tle Dorrit," based, of course, upon his personal 
knowledge of the buildings and their functions when 
the elder Dickens was imprisoned therein in 1822, 
and the family were living in mean quarters in 
near-by Lant Street, whither they had removed 
from Gower Street, North, in order to be near the 
prison. 

Until quite recently it is possible that certain por- 



H)ickens' Xont>on m 

tions of the old Marshalsea were still standing, 
though as a prison it was abolished in 1841, but, 
with the opening of one of those municipal pleasure 
grounds, — one cannot call them gardens, being 
merely a flagged courtyard, — the last vestiges are 
supposed to have disappeared from general view. 
Indeed, it appears that Dickens himself was not 
aware of any visible portions of the old building 
still remaining. This assertion is based on the fol- 
lowing lines taken from the preface of " Little Dor- 
rit : " 

" I found the outer front courtyard metamor- 
phosed into a butter-shop ; and then I almost gave 
up every brick for lost. ... I then came to Mar- 
shalsea Place ; . . . and whoever goes here will find 
his feet on the very paving-stones of the extinct 
Marshalsea Gaol, — will see its narrow yard to the 
right and to the left but very little altered, if at all, 
except that the walls were lowered when the place 
got free." 

When the elder Dickens was carried to prison, 
like Mr. Dorrit, he was lodged in the top story but 
one, in the chamber afterward occupied by the Dor- 
rits, when Charles, it was said, went often (before 
the family removed across the river) to visit him, 
crossing presumably the old picturesque London 
Bridge. In " David Copperfield," it is evidently 



112 2)ic[iens' XouDon 

the same edifice which is disguised as the " King's 
Bench Prison." 

In the immediate neighbourhood of the Marshal- 
sea was St. George's Vestry, where, on the cushions, 
with the church register for a pillow, slept Little 
Dorrit on the night on which she was shut out of 
the prison. 

Opposite, on High Street, stood until recently the 
little pie-shop, where Flora read out her lecture to 
Little Dorrit. Near by, also, was Mr. Cripple's 
dancing academy. (Deliciously Dickenesque — that 
name.) Guy's — reminiscent of Bob Sawyer — is 
but a stone's throw away, as also Lant Street, where 
he had his lodgings. Said Sawyer, as he handed 
his card to Mr. Pickwick : " There's my lodgings ; 
it's near Guy's, and handy for me, you know, — a 
little distance after you've passed St. George's 
Church; turns out of High Street on right-hand 
side the way." Supposedly the same humble rooms 
— which looked out upon a pleasant prospect of a 
timber-yard — in which lived the Dickens family 
during the elder Dickens' imprisonment. 

In Horsemonger Lane, which runs out of the 
High Street, was the tobacco-shop of Mrs. Chivery. 
In the High Street, too, was the old " White Hart " 
of Sam Weller and even Jack Cade. " The 
George," " The Spur," " The Queen's Head," and 



H)tcF?en6' Xon^on 113 

" The King's Head " — all reminiscent of Dickens 
— were also here in the immediate neighbourhood. 

Crossing the river northward, one may retrace 
their steps toward St. Paul's, near which, a quarter 
of a century back, might have been seen the arcaded 
entrance to Doctors' Commons, an institution de- 
scribed by Sam Weller, and which, among other 
functions, formerly kept guard of all the wills pro- 
bated in London. The building has since disap- 
peared, and the erstwhile valuable documents re- 
moved to Somerset House. 

Beyond the " Bank " is Leadenhall Street, where 
in St. Mary Axe, Dickens had located Pubsey and 
Co. The firm was domiciled in an " old, yellow, 
overhanging, plaster-fronted house," and, if it 
ever existed out of Dickens' imagination, has given 
way to a more modern and substantial structure. 

Fenchurch Street and Mincing Lane are not far 
away. In the latter was " Chicksey, Veneering, and 
Stobbles " Counting-House, and still further on 
Trinity House and Tower Hill to remind one of 
the locale of certain scenes in " Our Mutual Friend." 

In the Minories, leading from Tower Hill, was 
until recently the " Little Wooden Midshipman " 
of " Dombey and Son," standing over the door at 
Messrs. Norie and Wilson's, the nautical publishers. 
From Tower Hill, whither would one go but through 



114 Wiclacns* XonDon 

the Ratcliffe Highway, now St. George's Street, 
whereby is suggested the nocturnal wanderings of 
" The Uncommercial Traveller." Wapping, Shad- 
well, and Stepney, with its famous waterside church, 
are all redolent of the odours of the sea and remin- 
iscence of Dickens' characters. 

Somewhere between here and Limehouse Hole 
was Brig Place, not discoverable to-day, where lived 
the genial one-armed " Cuttle." 

Limehouse, with its " Reach " and " foul and 
furtive boats," is closely connected with the person- 
ality of Dickens himself, having been the residence 
of his godfather, one Huf¥am, a rigger employed in 
a waterside shipyard. What wonder then that the 
fascination of riverside London fell early upon the 
writer of novels? 

At the gate of Limehouse Church, Rokesmith 
lay in wait, on murder intent, and all Limehouse 
is odorous with memories of riverside crime and 
such nefarious deeds as were instigated by Hexham 
and Riderhood, an incident suggested, it is said by 
Dickens' biographer Forster, by the novelist hav- 
ing seen, in one of his walks in the neighbourhood, 
a placard on the hoardings announcing that a body 
of a person had been 

FOUND DROWNED. 




LIMEHOUSE CHURCH, 



H)icl?ens' Xon^on 115 

A neighbouring public house, " The TwO' Brew- 
ers," is supposed to be the original of that referred 
to by Dickens as " The Six Jolly Fellowship Por- 
ters," " a dropsical old house," as he called it, like 
so many old-world houses, all but falling down, 
if judged by appearances, but actually not in the 
least danger of it. 

One topic crops up in the notes and queries col- 
umns of the literary papers every once and again, 
viz., the location of the " filthy graveyard " of 
" Bleak House." It has been variously placed in the 
churchyard of St. Dunstan's-in-the-West, St. Bar- 
tholomew-the-Less, and again in Drury Lane Court, 
now disappeared. Most likely it was the latter, if 
any of these neighbourhoods, though it is all hearsay 
now, though formerly one of the " stock sights " 
of the " Lady Guide Association," who undertook 
to gratify any reasonable whim of the inquisitive 
American. 

A recent foregathering of members of the " Bo'Z 
Club " at Rochester, which celebrated the thirty- 
first anniversary of the novelist's death on June 
9, 1870, occurred in the homely " Bull Inn." This 
little band of devoted " Dickensians " contained 
among them Mr. Henry Dickens, K. C, the son 
of the novelist ; Mr. Percy Fitzgerald, who had the 
honour of being intimately associated with Dickens 



ii6 DicKens' Xon^on 

on Household Words; Mr. Luke Fildes, R. A., 
among whose many famous paintings is that pa- 
thetic story-telling canvas, " The Empty Chair," 
being a reproduction of that portion of Dickens' 
study at Gad's Hill, wherein stood the writer's desk 
and chair. 

On such a day as that on which the immortal 
Pickwick "bent over the balustrades of Rochester 
Bridge contemplating nature and waiting for break- 
fast," the club (in June, 1903) had journeyed to 
Rodiester to do homage to the fame of their master. 
The mediaeval, cramped High Street, " full of 
gables, with old beams and timbers carved into 
strange faces," seems to bask and grow sleepier 
than ever in the glaring sunlight. It is all practi- 
cally just as Dickens saw it for the last time three 
days before his death, as he stood against the 
wooden palings near the Restoration House contem- 
plating the old Manor Hoiise — just the same even 
to " the queer old clock that projects over the pave- 
ment out of a grave red-brick building, as if Time 
carried on business there, and hung out his sign." 
Those of the visitors so " dispoged " had lunch in 
the coffee-room of the " Bull," unchanged since the 
days of the original Pickwickians, but it is only in 
fancy and framed presentments that one now sees 
the " G. C. M. P. C." and his disciples, Messrs. 



S)tchens' XonOon 117 

Tupman, Snodgrass, Winkle, and Jingle. So 
closely, however, do we follow in the footsteps of 
Mr. Pickwick (wrote a member of the party) that 
we look through the selfsame coffee-room blinds 
at the passengers in the High Street, in which enter- 
taining occupation we were disturbed, as was Mr. 
Pickwick, by the coming of the waiter (perhaps 
one should say a waiter, not the waiter) to announce 
that the carriages are ready — " an announcement 
which the vehicles themselves confirm by forthwith 
appearing before the coffee-room blinds aforesaid." 



" ' Bless my soul ! ' said Mr. Pickwick, as they stood upon 
the pavement while the coats were being put in. ' Bless my 
soul ! who's to drive ? I never thought of that.' 

" • Oh ! you, of course,' said Mr. Tupman. 

" ' I ! ' exclaimed Mr. Pickwick. 

" ' Not the slightest fear, sir,' interposed the hostler. 

" * He don't shy, does he? ' inquired Mr. Pickwick. 

" ' Shy, sir? — He wouldn't shy if he was to meet a vaggin- 
load of monkeys with their tails burnt off.' " 



The ruined castle and the cathedral are visited, 
the castle looking more than ever " as if the rooks 
and daws had picked its eyes out." Before the 
cathedral, as Mr. Grewgious did before us, we 
stand for a contemplative five minutes at the great 
west door of the gray and venerable pile. 



ii8 Dtcftens' XonDon 

" ' Dear me,' said Mr, Grewgious, peeping in, ' it's like look- 
ing down the throat of Old Time.' 

" Old Time heaved a mouldy sigh from tomb and arch and 
vault ; and gloomy shadows began to deepen in corners ; and 
damps began to rise from green patches of stone ; and jewels, 
cast upon the pavement of the nave from stained-glass by the 
declining sun, began to perish." 

Or, to quote the more genial Jingle: 

" Old Cathedral, too — earthly smell — pilgrims' feet worn 
away the old steps — little Saxon doors — confessionals like 
money takers' boxes at theatres — queer customers those monks 

— Popes, and Lord Treasurers, and all sorts of old fellows, 
with great red faces, and broken noses, turning up every day 

— buff jerkins, too — matchlocks — sarcophagus — fine place 

— old legends too — strange stories, too ; capital." 



DISAPPEARING LONDON 

y^LACE names are always of interesting 
m""^ origin, in fact, all proper names have a 
fascination for the historian and littera- 
teur alike. Dickens himself was fond enough of 
the unusual, and doubtless he made good use of 
those bygones of a former age, which seemed best 
to suit his purpose. On the other hand, where 
would one find in reality such names as Quilp, 
Qieeryble, Twist, Swiveller, Heep, Tulkinghorn, 
or Snodgrass ? Where indeed ! except in the Bos- 
ton (U. S. A.) Directory? Here will be found 
Snodgrass and Twist and even a Heep, though he 
spells it Heap. It would be still further interesting 
to know the derivation of the names of these indi- 
viduals; but inasmuch as it would probably throw 
no additional light on Dickens' own personality, 
it is passed by without further comment. It is not 
that these names are any more unusual than many 
that really do exist, and possibly they all may have 
had a real entity outside of the author's brain; 

"9 



I20 2)icftens' Xon^on 

still it does represent a deal of thought that each 
and every character throughout all of Dickens' 
works should seem so singularly appropriate and in 
keeping with their names. 

With place names Dickens took another line. 
Occasionally he played upon a word, though often 
he did not disguise it greatly; nor did he intend 
to. In many more instances, he presented nO' coun- 
terfeit whatever. For picturesqueness and appro- 
priateness, in conjunction with the lives of the indi- 
viduals of which his novels abound, one could 
hardly improve on many actual places of which he 
wrote. 

London street names, in general, may be divided 
into two classes : those named for distinguished, 
or, for that matter, notorious persons, as Duke 
Street, Wellington Street, George Street, Berkley, 
Grosvenor, or Bridgewater Squares; or secondly, 
those named for topographical or architectural fea- 
tures, both classes of which, in the earlier times 
or immediately following the " Great Fire," under- 
went no inconsiderable evolution. 

In a later day this will perhaps not prove equally 
true; remodelling and rearranging of streets and 
squares not only changes the topography, but — 
aside from the main arteries — names as well are 
often changed or suppressed altogether. Since 



Dickens* XonDon 121 

Dickens' time many spots, which must have been 
dearly known and beloved of him, have disappeared, 
and the process is going on apace, until, with the 
advent of another century, it will doubtless be diffi- 
cult to recognize any of the localities of a hundred 
or more years before. 

Some remarkable corruptions have been recorded 
from time to time, such as Candlewick Street into 
Cannon Street, Cannon Row to Channel Row, and 
Snore Hill to Snow Hill, all of which are easily 
enough followed. Strype's Court (after the histo- 
rian's family) to Tripe Court, or Duck Lane into 
Duke Street, are not so easy. 

Tavern signs, too, are supposed to have under- 
gone similar perversions, not always with euphoni- 
ous success, as witness the following : " The Bach- 
nals " into " Bag of Nails," " The God Encompass- 
eth Us " into " Goat and Compasses; " both of the 
former existed in Victorian days, as does the latter 
at the present time. Many of these old tavern signs 
are to be seen to-day in the museum at the Guild 
Hall. 

The actual changes of street names are equally 
curious, when one attempts to follow the connection, 
which, for a fact, mostly cannot be done. Thus they 
stand in their modified form, either as an improve- 
ment or debasement. Hog Lane, St. Giles, is now 



122 2)icftens' Xon^on 

Crown Street ; Grub Street is now gloriously named 
Milton Street, and Shoreditch Lane becomes Wor- 
ship Street, 

The matter of street lighting is ever one which 
appeals to the visitor to a strange city. Curious 
customs there be, even to-day, in the city of London, 
which have come down from the age which knew 
not the gas-jet or the electric globe. 

In Dickens' time, it is confident to say that the 
" linkman " was not the rara azns that he is to-day, 
though evidences are still to be noted in residential 
Mayfair and Belgravia, and even elsewhere, of the 
appurtenances of his trade, referring to the torch- 
extinguishers which were attached outside the door- 
ways of the more pretentious houses. 

As an established trade, link-carrying has been 
extinct for nearly a century, but the many extin- 
guishers still to be seen indicate that the custom 
died but slowly from the days when the sturdy 
Briton, — 

" Round as a globe and liquored every chink, 
Goodly and great, sailed behind his link.'''' 

— Dryden. 

The first street lighted with gas was Pall Mall, 
in 1807, and oil was solely used in many streets and 
squares as late as i860. 

The old London watchman — the progenitor of 



Dicftens' Xon^on 123 

the modern policeman — used to cry out, " Light ! 
Light! hang out your hght." Later came enclosed 
glass lamps or globes, replacing the candles of a 
former day. These endured variously, as is noted, 
until very near the time when electric refulgence 
was beginning to make itself known. On the whole, 
until recently, London could not have been an ex- 
ceedingly well-lighted metropolis, and even now 
there is many a dark court and alley, which would 
form in itself a fitting haunt for many a lower- 
class ruffian of the type Dickens was wont tO' depict. 
The mortality among the old inns of Holborn 
has been very high of late, and still they vanish. 
" The Black Bull," known well to Dickens, is the 
last to come under sentence. Its sign, a veritable 
bull of Bashan, sculptured in black and gold, has 
been familiar to all who go down to the City in 
omnibuses. Until recently the old courtyard of the 
inn might still have been seen, though the galleried 
buildings which surrounded it were modern. Be- 
fore Holborn Viaduct was built, the " Black Bull " 
stood just at the top of Holborn Hill, that difficult 
ascent which good citizens found too long, and bad 
ones too short. " Sirrah, you'll be hanged ; I shall 
live to see you go up Holborn Hill," says Sir Samp- 
son Legend to his thriftless son in Congreve's 
" Love for Love," 



124 H>icl?ens' Xon&on 

But the " Black Bull " has nearer associations for 
us. It was here that Mrs. Gamp and Betsy Prig 
nursed Mr. Lewsome through his fever at the ex- 
pense of John Westlock. When Mrs. Gamp re- 
lieved Betsy in the sick-room, the following dialogue 
occurred : " * Anything to tell afore you goes, my 
dear ? ' asked Mrs. Gamp, setting her bundle down 
inside the door, and looking affectionately at her 
partner. ' The pickled salmon,' Mrs. Prig replied, 
* is quite delicious. I can partick'ler recommend 
it. Don't have nothink to say to the cold meat, for 
it tastes of the stable. The drinks is all good.' " 
To-day the cold meat is represented by the noble 
animal on the fagade of the inn, and it will probably 
adorn the Guildhall collection of old shop and tav- 
ern signs, where the hideous " Bull and Mouth " 
and " Goose and Gridiron " still look down on the 
curious. 

Of the matter-of-fact realities of London, which, 
though still existent, have changed since Dickens' 
day, London Bridge is undergoing widening and 
rebuilding, which will somewhat change its general 
aspect, though its environment remains much the 
same. 

Furnival's Inn, where Dickens lived, has disap- 
peared, and Clifford's Inn has just been sold (1903) 
in the public auction mart, to be removed, with some 



Dickens' Xont)on 125 

hideous and unquiet modern office building doubt- 
less destined to take its place. 

New transportation schemes, almost without num- 
ber, are announced. Electric trams, " tubes," and 
underground subways are being projected in every 
direction. These perhaps do not change the surface 
aspect of thing very much, but they are working 
a marvellous change in the life of the times. The 
old underground " District " and '' Metropolitan " 
Railways are being " electrified " by the magnan- 
imity (sic) of American capital, and St. Paul's 
Cathedral has been supplied with a costly electric- 
light plant at the expense of an American multi- 
millionaire. 

The American invasion of typewriters, roll-top 
desks, and book printing and binding machinery, 
are marking an era of change and progress in the 
production of the printed word, and Continental- 
made motors and automobiles are driving the hum- 
ble cart-horse from the city streets in no small way. 

It now only remains for the development of the 
project which is to supplant the ungainly though 
convenient omnibus with an up-tot-date service of 
motor stages, when, in truth, London will have 
taken on very much of a new aspect. 

One of the most recent disappearances is old 
Holywell Street, of unsavoury reputation, the 



126 Dicftens* Xon^on 

whilom Booksellers' Row of Dickens' day, a 
" narrow, dirty lane " which ran parallel with the 
Strand from St. Clement's-Danes to St. Mary-le- 
Strand, and was occupied chiefly by vendors of 
books of doubtful morality. Wycli Street, too, in 
company with Holywell Street, has gone the same 
way, in favour of the new thoroughfare which is 
to connect Holborn and the Strand, an enterprise 
which also has made way with the Clare Market 
between Lincoln's Inn Fields and the Strand, a lo- 
cality well known to, and made use of by, Dickens 
in " The Old Curiosity Shop." 

The identical building referred to therein may be 
in doubt ; probably it is, in that Dickens himself re- 
pudiated or at least passed a qualifying observation 
upon the " waste paper store," which popular tra- 
dition has ever connected therewith. But one critic 
— be he expert or not — has connected it somewhat 
closely with the literary life of the day, as being 
formerly occupied by one Tessyman, a bookbinder, 
who was well acquainted with Dickens, Thackeray, 
and Cruikshank. The literary pilgrim will give up 
this most sentimental Dickens relique with some- 
thing of the serious pang that one feels when his 
favourite idol is shattered, when the little overhang- 
ing corner building is finally demolished, as it soon 



Dicftens' XonDon 127 

will be, if " improvement " goes on at the pace of 
the last few years hereabouts. 

A drawing of this revered building has been in- 
cluded in the present volume, as suggestive of its 
recorded literary associations. 

There is no question but what it is the relique 
of the first rank usually associated with Dickens' 
London, as witness the fact that there appears al- 
ways to be some numbers of persons gazing fondly 
at its crazy old walls. 

The present proprietor appears to have met the 
demand which undoubtedly exists, and purveys 
souvenirs, prints, drawings, etc., tO' the Dickens 
admirers who throng his shop " in season " and out, 
and from all parts of the globe, with the balance, as 
usual, in favour of the Americans. 

Rumour has it, and it has been said before, that 
some "collector" (from America, of course) has 
purchased this humble shrine, and intends to erect 
it again across the seas, but fio verification of this 
is possible at this writing. 

Whether it had any real being in Dickens' story, 
the enthusiast, in view of the facts, must decide for 
him or herself. 

" And now at length he's brought 
Unto fair London City 
Where, in Fleet Street, 



128 Dickens* Xont)on 

A II those many see V 
That will not believe my ditty ^ 

— Butler. 

A half-century ago Temple Bar might have been 
described as a gateway of stone separating the 
Strand from Fleet Street — the City from the shire. 

This particular structure was erected from de- 
signs by Sir Christopher Wren in 1670, and from 
that day until long after Dickens' death, through 
it have passed countless throngs of all classes oi 
society, and it has always figured in such ceremony 
of state as the comparatively infrequent visits of 
the sovereign to the City. The invariable custom 
was to close the gate whenever the sovereign had 
entered the City, " and at no other time." 

The ceremony was simple, but formal : a herald 
sounds a trumpet — another herald knocks — a 
parley — the gates are thrown open and the lord 
mayor, pro tempo., hands over the sword of the 
City to the sovereign. It was thus in Elizabeth's 
time, and it had changed but little throughout Vic- 
toria's reign. 

The present structure is Temple Bar only in 
name, being a mere guide-post standing in the mid- 
dle of the roadway ; not very imposing, but it serves 
its purpose. The former structure was removed 



2)tcl?ens* Xonbon 129 

in the eighties, and now graces the private park of 
an estate at Walthamstow. 

For long before it was taken down, its interior 
space was leased to " Childs," the bankers, as a 
repository or storage-place for their old ledgers. 
Thus does the pomp of state make way for the sor- 
didness of trade, and even the wealthy corporation 
of the City of London was not above turning a 
penny or two as additional revenue. 

The following details of Furnival's Inn, which 
since Dickens' time has disappeared, are pertinent 
at this time. 

" Firnivalles Inn, now an Inn of Chancery, but 
some time belonging to Sir William Furnival, 
Knight," is the introduction to the description given 
by Stow in his " Annals." The greater part of 
the old inn was taken down in the time of Charles 
I., and the buildings remaining in Dickens' day, 
principally occupied as lawyers'offices, were O'f com- 
paratively modem construction. Since, these too, 
have disappeared, and there is little to call it to 
mind but the location the inn once occupied. 

The Gothic hall, with its timber roof, — part of 
the original structure (tempo Richard II.), — was 
standing as late as 18 18, when the entire inn was 
rebuilt by one Peto, who it is to be inferred built 



13° 2)ickens' Xont)on 

the row in which were the lodgings occupied by 
Dickens. 

In the west end of London changes have been 
none the less rapid than in the east. The cutting 
through of Northumberland Avenue, from Trafal- 
gar Square to the river, laid low the gardens and 
mansion of Northumberland House. Of this stately 
mansion it is said that it looked more like a noble- 
man's mansion than any other in London. It was 
built, in about 1600, by the Earl of Northampton, 
and came into the hands of the Percies in 1642. 
Stafford House is perhaps the most finely situated 
mansion in the metropolis, occupying the comer of 
St. James' and the Green Parks, and presenting 
four complete fronts, each having its own architec- 
tural character. The interior, too, is said to be the 
first of its kind in London. The mansion was built 
by the Duke of York, with money lent by the Mar- 
quis of Stafford, afterward Duke of Sutherland ; 
but the Stafford family became owners of it, and 
have spent at least a quarter of a million sterling 
on the house and its decorations. Apsley House, at 
the corner of Piccadilly and Hyde Park, is the resi- 
dence of the Dukes of Wellington, and is closely 
associated with the memory of the duke. The shell 
of the house, of brick, is old; but stone frontages, 
enlargements, and decorations were afterward made. 



13)ichcn3* %on^on 131 

The principal room facing Hyde Park, with seven 
windows, is that in which the Great Duke held the 
celebrated Waterloo Banquet, on the i8th of June 
in every year, from 18 16 to 1852. 

In the seventeenth century the Strand was a 
species of country road, connecting the city with 
Westminster ; and on its southern side stood a num- 
ber of noblemen's residences, with gardens toward 
the river. The pleasant days are long since past 
when mansions and personages, political events and 
holiday festivities, marked the spots now denoted by 
Essex, Norfolk, Howard, Arundel, Surrey, Cecil, 
Salisbury, Buckingham, Villiers, Craven, and 
Northumberland Streets — a very galaxy of aris- 
tocratic names. 

Again it is reiterated : the names are, for the 
most part, actually those now given to great hotels 
which occupy the former sites of these noble man- 
sions. 

The residences of the nobility and gentry were 
chiefly in the western part of the metropolis. In 
this quarter there have been large additions of hand- 
some streets, squares, and terraces within the last 
fifty years. First, the district around Belgrave 
Square, usually called Belgravia. Northeast from 
this, near Hyde Park, is the older, but still fashion- 
able quarter, comprehending Park Lane and May- 



132 H)ichen9' XonDon 

fair. Still farther north is the modern district, 
sometimes called Tyburnia, being built on the 
ground adjacent to what once was " Tyburn," the 
place of public executions. This district, including 
Hyde Park Square and Westbourne Terrace, early 
became a favourite place of residence for city mer- 
chants. Lying north and northeast from Tyburnia 
are an extensive series of suburban rows of build- 
ings and detached villas, which are ordinarily 
spoken of under the collective name, St. John's 
Wood, Regent's Park forming a kind of rural cen- 
tre to the group. 

New thoroughfares and the need thereof make 
a wholly new set of conditions, and such landmarks 
as have survived the stress of time and weather 
are thoroughly suggestive and reminiscent of the 
past, and are often the only guide-posts left by 
which one may construct the surroundings of a 
former day. 

Of this the stranger is probably more observant 
than the Londoner born and bred. The gloomy, 
crowded streets — for they are gloomy, decidedly, 
most of the time during five months of the year — 
do not suggest to the native emotions as vivid 
as to the stranger, who, with a fund of reading 
for his guide, wanders through hallowed ground 



Dlcftens' Xont)on 133 

which is often neglected or ignored by the Lon- 
doner himself. 

As for the general architectural effect of London 
as a type of a great city, it is heightened or lowered 
accordingly as one approves or disapproves of the 
artistic qualities of soot and smoke. 

Fogs are the natural accompaniment of smoke, 
in the lower Thames valley, at least, and the " Lon- 
don particular " — the pea-soup variety — is a thing 
to be shuddered at when it draws its pall over the 
city. At such times, the Londoner, or such propor- 
tion of the species as can do so, hurries abroad, if 
only to the Surrey Hills, scarce a dozen miles away, 
but possessed of an atmosphere as different as day 
is from night. 

Our own Nathaniel Hawthorne it was who 
wrote, " There cannot be anything else in its way 
so good in the world as this effect " (of fog and 
smoke) " on St. Paul's in the very heart and densest 
tumult of London. It is much better than staring 
white; the edifice would not be nearly so grand 
without this drapery of black." Since we are told 
that the cost of the building was defrayed by a tax 
on all coals brought into the port of London, it gets 
its blackness by right. This grime is at all events 
a well-established fact, which has to be accepted. 

Mr. G. A. Sala, a friend and contemporary of 



134 2)icftens' aLonC)on 

Dickens, also wrote in favour of the smoky chim- 
neys. He says about St. Paul's : " It is really the 
better for all the incense which all the chimneys 
since the time of Wren have offered at its shrine, 
and are still flinging up every day from their foul 
and grimy censers." As a flower of speech, this 
is good, but as criticism it is equivalent to saying 
the less seen of it the better. M. Taine, the French 
critic, evidently thought otherwise; he wrote of 
Somerset House: 

" A frightful thing is the huge palace in the 
Strand which is called Somerset House. Massive 
and heavy piece of architecture, of which the hol- 
lows are inked, the porticoes blackened with soot, 
where in the cavity of the empty court is a sham 
fountain without water, pools of water on the pave- 
ment, long rows of closed windows. What can 
they possibly do in these catacombs? It seems as 
if the livid and sooty fog had even befouled the 
verdure of the parks. But what most offends the 
eyes are the colonnades, peristyles, Grecian orna- 
ments, mouldings, and wreaths of the houses, all 
bathed in soot. Poor antique architecture — what 
is it doing in such a climate?" 

To decide what style of architecture prevails in 
the medley of different periods constituting London 
is indeed difficult. One authority concludes that 



5)icftens' XonOon 135 

the " dark house in the long, unlovely street," of 
which Tennyson tells, and Mme. de Stael vituper- 
ates, covers the greater number of acres. The fact 
is, each of the districts constituting London as it 
now is, i. e., Belgravia, Tyburnia, Bayswater, Ken- 
sington, Chelsea, etc., has the impress and character 
of the time of its greatest popularity and fashion 
and of the class by which it was principally inhab- 
ited. It has always been the city's fate to have 
its past overgrown and stifled by the enthralling 
energy and life of the present. It is as a hive that 
has never been emptied of its successive swarms. 
This is more or less the fate of all towns that live. 

The first map of London was published in 1563 
by Ralph Ugga; it shows the same main arteries 
as exist to-day — the Strand, " Chepe," and Fleet. 
In a later map of 16 10, London and Westminster 
appear as small neighbouring towns with fields 
around them; Totten Court, a country village; 
Kensington and Marylebone secluded hamlets; 
Clerkenwell and St. Gyllis quite isolated from the 
main city while Chelsey was quite in the wilds. 

Even the great devastating fires did not destroy 
the line of the public highways. After that of 1666 
Sir Christopher Wren wished to remodel the town 
and make it regular, symmetrical, and convenient; 
but, although he was the prevailing spirit in the 



136 Dicftens' Xon^on 

rebuilding of London city, and noi important build- 
ing during forty years was erected without his judg- 
ment, his plan for regulating and straightening the 
streets did not take effect. Much of the picturesque 
quality of the city is owing to its irregularity and 
the remains of its past. Wren rebuilt noi less than 
sixty churches, all showing great variety O'f design. 
St. Paul's, the third Christian church since early 
Saxon times on the same site, was his masterpiece. 
Of his immediate predecessor, Inigo Jones, the 
Banqueting House in Whitehall, now used as a 
museum, remains a fragment of the splendid palace 
designed by him for James I. The classical revival 
began with Gibbs, when he built St. Martin's-in- 
the-Fields, whose Greek portico is the best and most 
perfect Greek example in London, if we except 
the caryatides of St. Pancras. The brothers Adam 
also flourished at this time, and introduced grace 
of line and much artistic skill in domestic establish- 
ments which they built in " The Adelphi " and else- 
where. Chambers with Somerset House, and Sir 
John Soane with the Bank of England, continued 
the classical traditions, but its full force came with 
Nash, " the apostle of plaster," who planned the 
Quadrant and Regent Street, from Carlton House 
to Regent's Park, and the terraces in that locality, 
in the tawdry pseudo-classic stuccoed style, applied 



Dtcftens' Xon&on 137 

indiscriminately to churches, shops, and what not. 
Not till the middle of the nineteenth century did the 
Gothic revival flourish. Pugin, Britton, and Sir 
John Barry then became prominent. The last 
named built the Houses of Parliament. 

The demand for originality in street architecture 
is to be seen in the tall, important blocks of resi- 
dential flats and new hotels now rising up in every 
quarter. Not beautiful and in many cases not even 
intelligible, they are unmistakable signs of the 
times, showing the process of transformation which 
is going on rapidly, sweeping away much that is 
beautiful to meet the requirements of modern life. 

London is perhaps never to be doomed to the 
curse of the sky-scraper, as it is known in America; 
the results of such an innovation would be too dire 
to contemplate, but like every other large city, it 
is under the spell of twentieth century ideas of prog- 
ress, and the results, a score or more years hence, 
will, beyond doubt, so change the general aspect and 
conditions of life that the spirit of the Victorian 
era in architecture and art will have been dissipated 
in air, or so leavened that it will be a glorified Lon- 
don that will be known and loved, even better than 
the rather depressing atmosphere which has sur- 
rounded London and all in it during the thirty-five 
rapid years which have passed since Dickens' death. 



138 2)icf?ens' XonOon 

Such, in brief, is a survey of the more noticeable 
architectural and topographical features of London, 
which are indicating in no mean fashion the effect 
of Mr. Whistler's dictum : " Other times, other 
lines." 

Of no place perhaps more true than of London, 
yet, on the other hand, in no other place, perhaps, 
does the tendency make way so slowly. 



THE COUNTY OF KENT 

^^■^HE country lying between London and 
i the English Channel is one of the most 
varied and diversified in all England. 
The " men of Kent " and the " Kentish men " have 
gone down in history in legendary fashion. The 
Roman influences and remains are perhaps more 
vivid here to-day than elsewhere, while Chaucer 
has done perhaps more than all others to give the 
first impetus to our acquaintanceship with the pleas- 
ures of the road. 

" The Pilgrim's Way," the old Roman Watling 
Street, and the " Dover Road " of later centuries 
bring one well on toward the coaching days, which 
had not yet departed ere Mr. Pickwick and his 
friends had set out from the present " Golden 
Cross " Hotel at Charing Cross for " The Bull " 
at Rochester. 

One should not think of curtailing a pilgrimage 
to what may, for the want of a more expressive 
title, be termed " Dickens' Kent," without jour- 

139 



I40 2)ic[?ens' Xon^on 

neying from London to Gravesend, Cobham, Strood, 
Rochester, Chatham, Maidstone, Canterbury, and 
Broadstairs. Here one is immediately put into 
direct contact, from the early works of " Pickwick," 
" Copperfield," and " Chuzzlewit," to the last un- 
finished tale of " Edwin Drood." 

No end of absorbing interest is to be found in 
the footsteps of Pickwick and Jingle, and Copper- 
field and his friend Steerforth. 

To-day one journeys, by a not very progressive or 
up-to-date railway, by much the same route as did 
Mr. Pickwick and his friends, and reaches the Med- 
way at Strood and Rochester through a grime and 
gloom which hardly existed in Dickens' time to 
the same compromising extent that it does to-day. 
Bricks, mortar, belching chimneys, and roaring fur- 
naces line the route far into the land of hops. 

Twenty miles have passed before those quiet 
scenes of Kentish life, which imagination has led 
one to expect, are in the least apparent. The route 
via the river towns of Woolwich, Erith, Gravesend, 
and Dartford, or via Lee, Eltham, and Bexley, is 
much the same, and it is only as the train crosses 
the Medway at Strood — the insignificant and un- 
interesting suburb of Rochester — that any environ- 
ment of a different species from that seen in Lon- 
don itself is to be recognized. The ancient city 



H)icftens' Xonbon 141 

of Rochester, with its overgroAvn and significantly 
busy dockyard appendage of Chatham, is indicative 
of an altogether different raison d'etre from what one 
has hitherto connected the scenes of Dickens' stories. 

Kent as a whole, even the Kent of Dickens, 
would require much time to cover, as was taken 
by the " Canterbury " or even the " Pickwickian " 
pilgrims, but a mere following, more or less rap- 
idly, oi the Dover Road, debouching therefrom to 
Broadstairs, will give a vast and appreciative insight 
into the personal life of Dickens as well as the 
novels whose scenes are here laid. 

The first shrine of moment en route would be 
the house at Chalk, where Dickens spent his honey- 
moon, and lived subsequently at the birth of his 
son, Charles Dickens, the younger. Gad's Hill fol- 
lows closely, thence Rochester and Chatham. The 
pond on which the " Pickwickians " disported them- 
selves on a certain occasion, when it was frozen, 
is still pointed out at Rochester, and " The Leather 
Bottle " at Cobham, where Mr. Pickwick and Mir. 
Winkle made inquiries for " a gentleman by the 
name oi Tupman," is a very apparent reality; and 
with this one is well into the midst of the Kent 
country, made famous by Charles Dickens. 

Aside from Dickens' later connection with 
Rochester, or, rather. Gad's Hill Place, there is his 



142 DicMens' Xon^on 

early, and erstwhile happy, life at Chatham to be 
reckoned with. Here, his father being in employ- 
ment at the dockyard, the boy first went to school, 
having been religiously and devotedly put through 
the early stages of the educative process by his 
mother. 

His generally poor health and weakly disposition 
kept him from joining in the rough games of his 
schoolmates, and in consequence he found relaxa- 
tion in the association of books. Indeed, it was at 
this time that the first seeds of literary ambition 
took root, with the result that a certain weedy thing, 
called " A Tragedy," grew up under the title of 
" Misnar, the Sultan of India," which at least gave 
the young author fame among his immediate juve- 
nile circle. 

At the age of nine, his father left Chatham, and 
Dickens was removed with the rest of the family 
to London, where his early pitiful struggles began, 
wdiich are recorded elsewhere. 

There is a peculiar fascination about both the 
locality and the old residence of Charles Dickens 
— Gad's Hill Place — which few can resist. Its 
lofty situation on a ridge between the Thames and 
the Medway gives Gad's Hill several commanding 
views, including the busy windings of the latter, 
where the Dutch fleet anchored in Elizabeth's reign. 



2)icftens* Xont»on 143 

The surroundings seem from all times to have 
been a kind of Mecca to tramps and petty showmen. 
That Dickens had an irresistible love for this spot 
would be clear from the following extract from his 
works : 

" I have my eye on a piece of Kentish road, bor- 
dered on either side by a wood, and having, on one 
hand, between the road dust and the trees, a skirting 
patch of grass. Wild flowers grow in abundance 
on this spot, and it lies high and airy, ^ with a distant 
river stealing steadily away to the ocean. . , ," 

Gad's Hill Place is a comfortable, old-fashioned, 
creeper-clad house, built about a century since, and 
is on the spot mentioned in Shakespeare's " Henry 
IV." as the scene of the robbery of the travellers. 
The following extract from a mediaeval record book 
is interesting : 

" 1586, September 29*^ daye, was a thief e yt was 
slayne, buried." Again " 1590, Marche the 17*^ 
daie, was a thiefe yt was at Gadshill wounded to 
deathe, called Robert Writs, buried." 

The " Falstaff " Inn is nearly opposite Gad's Hill 
Place, and dates probably from Queen Anne's time. 
It formerly had an old-fashioned swinging sign, 
on one side of which was painted Falstaff and the 
Merry Wives of Windsor. In its long sanded room 
there was a copy of Shakespeare's monument in 



144 Dtcftens' XonDon 

Westminster Abbey. Fifty years ago about ninety 
coaches passed this inn daily. 

In the garden at Gad's Hill Place Dickens had 
erected a Swiss chalet presented to him by Fechter, 
the actor. Here he did his writing " up among the 
branches of the trees, where the birds and butter- 
flies fly in and out." 

The occupiers of Gad's Hill Place since the nov- 
elist's death have been Charles Dickens, the younger, 
Major Buddeii, and latterly the Honourable F. W. 
Latham, who graciously opens certain of the apart- 
ments to visitors. 

In the immediate neighbourhood of Rochester is 
Cobham, with its famous Pickwickian inn, " The 
Leather Bottle," where Mr. Tupman sought retire- 
ment from the world after the elopement of Miss 
Wardle with Alfred Jingle. 

Dickens himself was very fond of frequenting 
the inn in company with his friends. 

The visitor will have no need to be told that the 
ancient hostelry opposite the village church is the 
" Leather Bottle " in question, so beloved of Mr. 
Pickwick, since the likeness of that gentleman, 
painted vividly and in the familiar picturesque atti- 
tude, on the sign-board, loudly proclaims the fact. 
It should be one of the fixed formula; of the true 
Dickensian faith that all admirers of his immortal 



2)tcftens' Xon&on 145 

hero should turn in at the " Leather Bottle " at Cob- 
ham, and do homage to Pickwick in the well-known 
parlour, with its magnificent collection of Dickens 
relics, too numerous to enumerate here, but of great 
and varied interest, the present proprietor being 
himself an ardent Dickens enthusiast. 

Here is a shrine, at once worthy, and possessed 
of many votive offerings from all quarters. 

Dickens' personality, as evinced by many of his 
former belongings, which have found a place here, 
pervades the bar parlour. So, too, has the very 
spirit and sentiment of regard for the novelist made 
the " Leather Bottle's " genial host a marked man. 
He will tell you many anecdotes of Dickens and his 
visits here in this very parlour, when he was living 
at Higham. 

The " mild and bitter," or the " arf and arf," is 
to-day no less pungent and aromatic than when 
Dickens and his friends regaled themselves amid 
the same surroundings. 

It should be a part of the personal experience of 
every Dickens enthusiast to journey to the " un- 
spoilt " village of Cobham and spend a half-day 
beneath the welcoming roof of the celebrated 
" Leather Bottle." 

The great love of Dickens for Rochester, the 
sensitive clinging to the scenes of that happy, but 



146 2)tcftens' Xont)on 

all too short childhood at Chatham, forms an in- 
stance of the magnetic power of early associations. 

" I have often heard him say," said Forster, 
" that in leaving the neighbourhood of Rochester 
he was leaving everything that had given his early 
life its picturesqueness or sunshine." 

What the Lake District is to Wordsworthians, 
Melrose to lovers of Scott, and Ayr to Burns, 
Rochester and its neighbourhood is to Dickens 
enthusiasts throughout the English-speaking world. 

The very subtlety of the spell in the former cases 
holds aloof many an average mortal who grasps 
at once the home thrusts, the lightly veiled satire, 
the poor human foibles, fads, and weaknesses in 
the characters of Dickens. The ordinary soul, in 
whom the " meanest flower that grows " produces 
no tears, may possibly be conscious of a lump in his 
throat as he reads of the death of Jo or Little Nell. 
The deaths of Fagin and Bill Sikes are, after all, a 
more native topic to the masses than the final exit 
of Marmion. 

Not only so, but the very atmosphere of the 
human abodes, to say nothing of minute and read- 
ily identified descriptions of English scenery, per- 
meates the stories of Dickens. 

Gad's Hill at Higham can, to be sure, hardly 
be reckoned as a London suburb, but on the other 



2)fcftens' XontJon 147 

hand it was, in a way, merely a suburban residence 
near enough thereto to be easily accessible. 

Even in his childhood days Dickens had set his 
heart upon the possession of this house, which was 
even then known as Gad's Hill Place, His father, 
who at that time had not fallen upon his unfortunate 
state, had encouraged him to think that it might 
be possible, " when he should have grown to a man," 
did he but work hard. 

At any rate Dickens was able to purchase the 
estate in 1856, and from that date, until his death 
in 1870, it was occupied by him and his family. 
Writing to Forster at this time, Dickens stated that 
he had just " paid the purchase-money for Gad's 
Hill Place" (£1,790). How Dickens' possession 
of the house actually came about is told in his own 
words, in a letter written to his friend, M. De Cerjet, 
as follows : 

" I happened to be walking past (the house) a 
year or so ago, with my sub-editor of Household 
Words (Mr. W. H. Wills), when I said to him: 
* You see that house ? It has always a curious 
interest for me, because when I was a small boy 
down in these parts, I thought it the most beautiful 
house (I suppose because of its famous old cedar- 
trees) ever seen. And my poor father used to bring 
me to look at it, and used to say that if ever I 



148 H)icftens' Xon^on 

grew up to be a clever man perhaps I might own 
that house, or such another house. In remembrance 
of which, I have always, in passing, looked to see if 
it was to be sold or let, and it has never been to me 
like any other house, and it has never changed at 
all.' We came back to town and my friend went 
out to dinner. Next morning he came to me in 
great excitement, and said, * It is written that you 
are to have that house at Gad's Hill. The lady I 
had allotted to take down to dinner yesterday be- 
gan to speak of that neighbourhood. " You know 
it?" I said; "I have been there to-day." "Oh, 
yes," she said, " I know it very well; I was a child 
there in the house they call Gad's Hill Place. My 
father was the rector, and lived there many years. 
He has just died, has left it to me, and I want to 
sell it." So,' says the sub-editor, ' you must buy 
it, now or never ! ' I did, and hope to pass next 
summer there." 

It is difficult to regard the numerous passages 
descriptive of places in Dickens' books without 
reverence and admiration. The very atmosphere 
appears, by his pen, to have been immortalized. 

Even the incoherences of Jingle have cast a new 
cloak of fame over Rochester's Norman Cathedral 
and Castle! 

" * Ah ! fine place, glorious pile — frowning 



Dicftens' Xont)on 149 

walls — tottering arches — dark nooks — crum- 
bling staircases. Old Cathedral too — earthy smell 

— pilgrims' feet wore away the old steps — little 
Saxon doors — confessionals like money-takers' 
boxes at theatres — queer customers those monks 

— Popes and Lord Treasurers and all sorts of fel- 
lows, with great red faces and broken noses, turn- 
ing up every day — buff jerkins too — matchlocks 

— sarcophagus — fine place — old legends too — 
strange stories : capital,' and the stranger continued 
to soliloquize until they reached the Bull Inn, in 
the High Slreet, where the coach stopped." 

A further description of the Cathedral by Dickens 
is as follows : 

" A certain awful hush pervades the ancient pile, 
the cloisters, and the churchyard, after dark, which 
not many people care to encounter. The cause of 
this is not to be found in any local superstition that 
attaches to the precincts, but it is to be sought in 
the innate shrinking of dust with the breath of life 
in it from dust out of which the breath of life has 
passed ; also in the . . . reflection, * If the dead 
do, under any circumstances, become visible to the 
living, these are such likely surroundings for the 
purpose that I, the living, will get out of them as 
soon as I can.' " 

With Durdles and Jasper, from the pages of 



ISO Dickens' XonOon 

" Edwin Drood," also, one can descend into the 
crypt of the earlier Norman church, the same they 
visited by moonlight, when Durdles kept tapping 
the wall " just where he expected to disinter a whole 
family of ' old 'uns.' " 

In numerous passages Dickens has truly immor- 
talized what perforce would otherwise have been 
very insignificant and unappealing structures. The 
Bull Inn, most interesting of all, is unattractive 
enough as a hostelry. It would be gloomy and 
foreboding in appearance indeed, and not at all 
suggestive of the cheerful house that it is, did it 
but lack the association of Dickens. 

No. 17 in the inn is the now famous bedroom 
of Mr. Pickwick, and the present coffee-room now 
contains many relics of Dickens purchased at the 
sale held at Gad's Hill Place after the author's death. 

Chatham Lines, the meadows, the Cathedral and 
Castle, " Eastgate House," the Nuns' House of 
" Edwin Drood," " Restoration House," the " Satis 
House " of " Great Expectations," serve in a way 
to suggest in unquestionable manner the debt which 
Dickens laid upon Rochester and its surroundings. 

" Eastgate House " is said to be the original of 
the home of Mr. Sapsea, the auctioneer and estate 
' agent in " Edwin Drood." 
*"* ^ The date of Eastgate House, 1591, is carved on 

f . Ti 1 I -i '■". 



Bicftens' Xon&on 151 

a beam in one of the upper rooms. Dickens, in 
" Edwin Drood," alludes to Eastgate House as fol- 
lows: 

" In the midst of Cloisterham [Rochester] stands 
the ' Nuns' House/ a venerable brick edifice, whose 
present appellation is doubtless derived from the 
legend of its conventual uses. On the trim gate 
enclosing its old courtyard is a resplendent brass 
plate, flashing forth the legend : ' Seminary for 
young ladies : Miss Twinkleton.' The house-front 
is so old and worn, and the brass plate is so shining 
and staring, that the general result has reminded 
imaginative strangers of a battered old beau with 
a large modern eye-glass stuck in his left eye." 

To-day there is noticeable but little change, and 
the charm of Rochester in literary association, if 
only with respect to Dickens, is far greater than 
many another city greater and more comprehensive 
in its scope. 

In the opening scenes of the earlier work Dick- 
ens treated of Rochester, but the whole plot of his 
last novel, " Edwin Drood," is centred in the same 
city. 

" For sufficient reasons, which this narrative 
[" Edwin Drood "] will itself unfold as it advances, 
a fictitious name must be bestowed upon the old 
Cathedral town. Let it stand in these pages as 



152 Dtcftens' XonDon 

Cloisterham. It was once possibly known to the 
Druids by another name, and certainly to the Ro- 
mans by another; and a name more or less in the 
course of many centuries can be of little moment 
in its dusty chronicles." Dickens describes it thus : 

" An ancient city, Cloisterham, and no meet 
dwelling-place for any one with hankerings after 
the noisy world. A monotonous, silent city, deriv- 
ing an earthy flavour throughout from its cathedral 
crypt, and so abounding in vestiges of monastic 
graves that the Cloisterham children grow small 
salad in the dust of abbots and abbesses, and make 
dirt-pies of nuns and friars; while every plough- 
man in its outlying fields renders to once puissant 
Lord Treasurers, Archbishops, Bishops, and such 
like, the attention which the Ogre in the story-book 
desired to render to his unbidden visitor, and grinds 
their bones to make his bread. ... In a word, 
a city of another and a bygone time is Cloisterham, 
with its hoarse Cathedral bell, its hoarse rooks hov- 
ering about the Cathedral tower, its hoarser and 
less distinct rooks in the stalls far beneath." 

For the Dickens pilgrim, the first landmark that 
will strike his eye will be the Corn Exchange, " with 
its queer old clock that projects over the pavement " 
("Edwin Drood"). Watts' Charity, a triple- 
gabled edifice in the High Street, has become 



Dicftens' Xonbon 153 

world-famous through Dickens' " Christmas Story." 
" Strictly speaking," he says, " there were only six 
poor travellers, but being a traveller myself, and 
being withal as poor as I hope to be, I brought the 
number up to seven." 

The building is to be recognized both by the 
roof angles and the inscriptions on the walls, the 
principal one of which runs thus : 



Richard Watts Esq., 

by his Will, dated 22 Aug. iS7g, 

founded this Charity 

for Six poor Travellers, 

who not being Rogues or Proctors 

may receive gratis for one night, 

Lodgi7tg, Entertainment, 

and Fourpence each. 



Could good Richard Watts come forth some 
morning from his resting-place in the south transept 
over the way, he would have the pleasure of seeing 
how efficiently the trustees are carrying on their 
work. 

The visitor, too, who desires to see the prepara- 
tion for the coming evening's guests, may calculate 
on being no less " curtuoslie intreated " than the 
guests proper. In the little parlour to the left, as 
we enter from the street door, is the famous book 



IS4 Btcftens' Xont)on 

containing the names and signatures of numerous 
celebrities whose curiosity has led them hither — 
Dickens, Wilkie Collins, and J. L, Toole amongst 
the number. From the kitchen is served out the 
meat for the supper, which consists of half a pound 
oif beef, a pint of coffee, and half a loaf for each 
poor traveller. 

In the south transept of Rochester Cathedral is 
a plain, almost mean, brass to Charles Dickens : 

" Charles Dickens. Born at Portsmouth, seventh of 
February, 1812. 

" Died at Gadshill Place, by Rochester, ninth of June, 1870. 

" Buried in Westminster Abbey. To connect his memory 
with the scenes in which his earliest and latest years were 
passed, and with the associations of Rochester Cathedral 
and its neighbourhood, which extended over all his life, 
this tablet, with the sanction of the Dean and Chapter, is 
placed by his Executors." 

This recalls the fact that the great novelist left 
special instructions in his will : " I conjure my 
friends on no account to make me the subject of 
any monument, memorial, or testimonial whatever. 
I rest my claims to the remembrance of my country 
upon my published works." 

It was in this transept that Charles Dickens was 
to have been laid to rest. The grave, in fact, had 
been dug, and all was ready, when a telegram came 



Bichens' XonDon 155 

deciding that Westminster Abbey, and not Roches- 
ter, should be the long last home of the author. 

Great interest attaches itself to Broadstairs, 
where Dickens lived upon returning from his jour- 
ney abroad in company with his wife and " Phiz," 
in 185 1. " Bleak House " is still pointed out here, 
and is apparently revered with something akin to 
sentiment if not of awe. 

As a matter of fact, it is not the original of 
" Bleak House " at all, that particular edifice being 
situate in Hertfordshire, near St. Albans. 

This is an excellent illustration of the manner 
in which delusive legends grow up on the smallest 
foundations. On the cliff overlooking the little pier 
and close to the coast-guard station, stands Fort 
House, a tall and very conspicuous place which 
Charles Dickens rented during more than one sum- 
mer. This is now known as Bleak House because, 
according to a tradition on which the natives posi- 
tively insist, " Bleak House " was written there. 
Unfortunately for the legend, it is the fact that, 
although " Bleak House " was written in many 
places, — Dover, Brighton, Boulogne, London, and 
where not, — not a line of it was written at Broad- 
stairs. * 

Dickens' own description of Broadstairs was, in 
part, as follows: 



156 Dtchens' Xon&on 

" Half awake and half asleep, this idle morning 
in our sunny window on the edge of a chalk cliff 
in the old-fashioned watering-place to which we 
are a faithful resorter, we feel a lazy inclination to 
sketch its picture. 

" The place seems to respond. Sky, sea, beach, 
and village, lie as still before us as if they were 
sitting for the picture. But the ocean lies winking 
in the sunlight like a drowsy lion — its glassy 
waters scarcely curve upon the shore — the fishing- 
boats in the tiny harbour are all stranded in the 
mud — our two colliers (our watering-place has a 
maritime trade employing that amount of shipping) 
have not an inch of water within a quarter of a mile 
of them, and turn, exhausted, on their sides, like 
faint fish of an antediluvian species. Rusty cables 
and chains, ropes and rings, undermost parts of 
posts and piles and confused timber defences against 
the waves, lie strewn about, in a brown litter of 
tangled seaweed and fallen cliff. 

" In truth, our watering-place itself has been left 
somewhat high and dry by the tide of years. Con- 
cerned as we are for its honour, we must reluc- 
tantly admit that the time when this pretty little 
semi-circular sweep of houses tapering off at the 
end of the wooden pier into a point in the sea, was 
a gay place, and when the lighthouse overlooking 



Dicf?ens' Xont)on 157 

it shone at daybreak on company dispersing from 
public balls, is but dimly traditional now. There 
is a ' bleak chamber ' in our watering-place which 
is yet called the Assembly ' Rooms.' . . . 

"... We have a church, by the bye, of course 
— a hideous temple of flint, like a great petrified 
haystack. . . . 

" Other population than we have indicated, our 
watering-place has none. There are a few old used- 
up boatmen who creep about in the sunlight with 
the help of sticks, and there is a poor imbecile shoe- 
maker who wanders his lonely life away among 
the rocks, as if he were looking for his reason — 
which he will never find. Sojourners in neighbour- 
ing watering-places come occasionally in flys to 
stare at us, and drive away again. 

"... And since I have been idling at the win- 
dow here, the tide has risen. The boats are dancing 
on the bubbling water : the colliers are afloat again ; 
the white-bordered waves rush in ; the children — 

" ' Do chase the ebbing Neptune, and do fly him 
When he comes back ; ' 

the radiant sails are gliding past the shore, and 
shining on the far horizon ; all the sea is sparkling, 
heaving, swelling up with life and beauty, this 
bright morning." ("Our Watering-Place." ) 



is8 S)icftens' Xont)on 

Another reference of Dickens to the Kent coast 
was in one of the Household Words articles, entitled 
" Out of Season." The Watering- Place " out of 
season " was Dover, and the place without a cliff 
was Deal. 

Writing to his wife of his stay there, he says: 

" I did nothing at Dover (except for Household 
Words), and have not begun 'Little Dorrit,' No. 
8, yet. But I took twenty-mile walks in. the fresh 
air, and perhaps in the long run did better than 
if I had been at work." 

One can hardly think of Deal or Dover without 
calling to mind the French coast opposite, often, 
of a clear day, in plain view. 

In spite of Dickens' intimacies with ■, the land 
of his birth, he had also a fondness for foreign 
shores, as one infers from following the scope of 
his writings. 

Of Boulogne, he writes in " Our French Water- 
ing-Place " (Household Words, November 4, 

1854) : 

" Once solely known to us as a town with a very 
long street, beginning with an abattoir and ending 
with a steamboat, which it seemed our fate to 
behold only at daybreak on winter mornings, when 
(in the days before continental railroads), just 
sufficiently awake to know that we were most un- 



2)icftens' Xon&on 159 

comfortably asleep, it was our destiny always to 
clatter through it, in the coupe of the diligence from 
Paris, with a sea of mud behind, and a sea of 
tumbling waves before." 

An apt and true enough description that will 
be recognized by many. Continuing, he says, also 
truly enough: 

" But our French watering-place, when it is once 
got into, is a very enjoyable place." 

To those to whom these racy descriptions appeal, 
it is suggested that they familiarize themselves with 
the " Reprinted Pieces," edited by Charles Dickens 
the younger, and published in New York in 1896, 
a much more complete edition, with explanatory 
notes, than that which was issued in London. 



THE RIVER THAMES 

Glide gently, thus for ever glide, 
O Thames ! that other bards may see 
As lovely visions by thy side 
As now, fair river! come to me. 
O glide, fair stream, for ever so. 
Thy quiet soul on all bestowing. 
Till all our minds for ever flow 
As thy deep waters now are flowing. 

Wordsworth. . . 

Jl IVER present in the minds and hearts of the 
#T true Londoner is the "majestic Thames;" 
though, in truth, while it is a noble stream, 
it is not so all-powerful and mighty a river as ro- 
mance would have us believe. 

From its source, down through the Shires, past 
Oxford, Berks, and Bucks, and finally between Mid- 
dlesex, Surrey, and Essex, it ambles slowly but with 
dignity. From Oxford to Henley and Cookham, it 
is at its best and most charming stage. Passing 
Maidenhead, Windsor, Stains, Richmond, Twick- 
enham, and Hammersmith, and reaching Putney 
Bridge, it comes into London proper, after having 
journeyed on its gladsome way through green fields 

i6o 



Dichens' Xon^on i6i 

and sylvan banks for a matter of some hundred and 
thirty miles. 

At Putney Bridge and Hammersmith is the ceH' 
tre of the fishing section, and this was the back- 
ground depicted by the artist who drew the wrapper 
for the first serial issue of " The Posthumous Pa- 
pers oi the Pickwick Club." Putney Church is 
seen in the distance, with its Henry VHI. Chapel, 
and in the foreground Mr. Pickwick is found dozing 
in his traditional punt, — that curious box, or cof- 
fin-like, affair, which, as a pleasure craft, is appar- 
ently indigenous to the Thames. 

Above this point the river is still : 

..." The gentle Thames 

And the green, silent pastures yet remain^'' 

Poets have sung its praises, and painters extolled 
its charms. To cite Richmond alone, as a locality, 
is to call up memories of Sir Joshua Reynolds, 
Walpole, Pope, Thomson, and many others whose 
names are known and famed of letters and art. 

Below, the work-a-day world has left its stains 
and its ineffaceable marks of industry and grime, 
though it is none the less a charming and fascinat- 
ing river, even here in its lower reaches. And here, 
too, it has ever had its literary champions. Was 



i62 Bicftens' Xonbon 

not Taylor — " the water poet " — the Prince oi 
Thames Watermen ? " 

If swans are characteristic of the upper reaches, 
the waterman or the bargeman, assuredly, is of 
the lower. With the advent of the. railway, — 
which came into general use and effective develop- 
ment during Dickens' day, — it was popularly sup- 
posed that the traffic of the " silent highway " would 
be immeasurably curtailed. Doubtless it was, though 
the real fact is, that the interior water-ways of 
Britain, and possibly other lands, are far behind 
" la belle France " in the control and development 
of this means oif intercommunication. 

There was left on the Thames, however, a very 
considerable traffic which — with due regard for 
vested rights, archaic by-laws and traditions, " cus- 
toms of the port," and other limitations without 
number — gave, until very late years, a livelihood 
to a vast riverside population. 

The change in our day from what it was, even 
in the latter days of Dickens' life, is very marked. 
New bridges — at least a half-dozen — have been 
built, two or three new tunnels, steam ferries, — of 
a sort, — and four railway bridges ; thus the as- 
pect of the surface of the river has perforce changed 
considerably, opening up new vistas and ensembles 
formerly unthought of. 



S)icftcns* Xon^on 163 

Coming to London proper, from " Westminster " 
to the " Tower," there is practically an inexhaustible 
store of reminiscence to be called upon, if one would 
seek to enumerate or picture the sights, scenes, and 
localities immortalized by even the authors con- 
temporary with Dickens. 

Not all have been fictionists, — a word which is 
used in its well meant sense, — some have been 
chroniclers, like the late Sir Walter Besant and 
Joseph Knight, whose contributions of historical 
resume are of the utmost value. Others are mere 
" antiquarians " or, if you prefer, historians, as 
the author of " London Riverside Churches." Poets 
there have been, too, who have done their part in 
limning its charms, from Wordsworth's " West- 
minster Bridge," on the west, written at the begin- 
ning of the nineteenth century, to " A White-Bait 
Dinner at Greenwich," of Peacock, or " The Boy 
at the Nore," of Tom Hood, on the east. 

When, in the forties, the new Parliament Houses 
were approaching their completed form, a new fea- 
ture came intO' the prospect. 

As did Wren, the architect of St. Paul's, so did 
Barry, the architect of the Parliament Buildings, 
come in for many rough attacks at the hands of 
statesmen or Parliamentarians, who set their sails 
chiefly to catch a passing breath of popular applause, 



i64 2>icf?en5' Xon&on 

in order that they might provide for themselves a 
niche or a chapter in the history of this grand 
building. 

It was claimed that the flanking towers would 
mix inextricably with those of St. Margaret's and 
the iVbbey ; that were they omitted, the structure 
would be dwarfed by the aforesaid churches, — and 
much more of the same sort. In its present com- 
pleted form, it is a very satisfying " Tudor-Gothic," 
or " Gothic-Tudor," building, admirably character- 
istic of the dignity and power which should be 
possessed by a great national administrative cap- 
itol. 

The worst defect, if such be noticeable among 
its vast array of excellencies, is the unfinished 
northerly, or up-river, faqade. 

To recall a reminiscence of Dickens' acquaint- 
ance with the locality, it may be mentioned that in 
Milbank, hard by the Houses of Parliament, is 
Church Street, running to the river, where Copper- 
field and Peggotty followed Martha, bent upon 
throwing herself into the flood. 

In Dickens' time, that glorious thoroughfare, 
known of all present-day visitors to London, the 
Victoria Embankment, was in a way non-existent. 
In the forties there was some agitation for a new 
thoroughfare leading between the western and the 



2)icftens' Xon^on 165 

eastern cities. Two there were already, one along 
Holborn, though the later improvement of the Hol- 
born Viaduct more than trebled its efficiency, and 
the other, the " Royal Route," — since the court 
gave up its annual state pageant by river, — via 
the Strand, Fleet Street, and Ludgate Hill. 

As originally projected, the " Embankment " was 
to be but a mere causeway, or dyke, running parallel 
to the shore of the river from Westminster Bridge 
to Blackfriars, " with ornamental junctions at Hun- 
gerford and Waterloo Bridges." 

Whatever the virtues of such a plan may have 
been, practically or artistically, it was ultimately 
changed in favour of a solid filling which should 
extend from the fore-shore to somewhat approxi- 
mating the original river-banks. This left the 
famous " Stairs " far inland, as stand York Stairs 
and Essex Stairs to-day. 

The result has been that, while it has narrowed 
the river itself, it has made possible an ample road- 
way through the heart of a great city, the peer 
of which does not exist elsewhere. It is to be feared, 
though, that it is hardly appreciated. The London 
cabby appears to be fascinated with the glare and 
intricacy of the Strand, and mostly the drivers of 
brewers' drays and parcel delivery vans the same. 
The result is that, but for a few earnest folk who 



i66 Dicftens' XonDon 

are really desirous of getting to their destination 
quickly, it is hardly made use of to anything like 
the extent which it ought. 

The Thames in London proper was, in 1850, 
crossed by but six bridges. Blackfriars Railway 
Bridge, Charing Cross Railway Bridge, and the 
Tower Bridge did not come into the ensemble till 
later, though the two former were built during 
Dickens' lifetime. 

Westminster Bridge, from whence the Embank- 
ment starts, was the second erected across the 
Thames. It appears that attempts were made to 
obtain another bridge over the Thames besides that 
known as " London Bridge," in the several reigns 
of Elizabeth, James I., Charles L and IL, and 
George L ; but it was not until the year 1 736 that 
Parliament authorized the building of a second 
bridge, namely, that at Westminster. Prior to this 
date, the only communication between Lambeth and 
Westminster was by ferry-boat, near Palace Gate, 
the property of the Archbishop of Canterbury, to 
whom it was granted by patent under a rent of 
£20, as an equivalent for the loss of which, on 
the opening of the bridge, the see received the sum 
of £2,205. 

In 1739, amid great opposition from " The Most 
Worshipful Company of Watermen," the first stone 



Bicfteus' XonOon 167 

was laid, and in 1747 the structure was completed, 
the plans having been changed interim in favour of 
an entire stone structure. 

As it then stood Westminster Bridge was 1,066 
feet long, or 260 feet shorter than Waterloo Bridge; 
its width is 42 feet, height, 58 feet. The propor- 
tions of the bridge were stated by an antiquary, 
since departed this life, to be " so accurate that, 
if a person speak against the wall of any of the 
recesses on one side of the way, he may be dis- 
tinctly heard on the opposite side; even a whisper 
is audible during the stillness of the night," a cir- 
cumstance of itself of little import, one would think, 
but which is perhaps worth recording, as indicating 
the preciseness of a certain class of historians of 
the time. To-day it is to be feared that such details 
are accepted, if not with credulity, at least with 
indifiference. 

This fine work not being equal to the demands 
which were made upon it, it gave way in 1865 to 
the present graceful and larger iron-spanned struc- 
ture, which, while in no way a grand work of 
art, does not offend in any way. 

As the " Embankment " passes Charing Cross 
Railway Bridge, we are reminded that this rather 
ugly structure, with its decidedly ungainly append- 
age in the form of a huge railway station, did not 



i68 Dicftens' XonOon 

exist in Dickens' day. Instead there was a more 
or less graceful suspension bridge, known as Hun- 
gerford Bridge, which crossed the river from the 
lower end of Hungerford Market, now alas re- 
placed by the aforesaid crude railway station, which, 
in spite of the indication of progress which it sug- 
gests, can hardly be an improvement on what ex- 
isted on the same site some fifty years ago. 

Hungerford Market was a structure occupying 
much the same area as the present railway station; 
beside it was Warren's Blacking Factory, where 
Dickens, as a boy, tied up the pots of the darksome 
fluid. Just below was " Hungerford Stairs," an- 
other O'f those riverside landing-places, and one 
which was perhaps more made use of than any other 
between Blackfriars and Westminster, its aristo- 
cratic neighbour, " York Stairs," being but seldom 
used at that time. The latter, one of the few ex- 
isting works of Inigo Jones, remains to-day, set 
about with greensward in the " Embankment Gar- 
dens," but Hungerford Stairs, like the Market, and 
old Hungerford Bridge, has disappeared for ever. 
The present railway bridge is often referred to as 
Hungerford Bridge, by reason of the fact that a 
foot-bridge runs along its side, a proviso made when 
the former structure was permitted to be pulled 
down. Of the old blacking factory, which must 



Dicftens* Xonbon 169 

have stood on the present Villiers Street, nothing 
remains, nor of its " crazy old wharf, abutting on 
the water when the tide was out, and Hterally over- 
run by rats." 

On the I St of May, 1845, Hungerford Suspension 
Bridge was opened tO' the pubhc without ceremony, 
but with much interest and curiosity, for between 
noon and midnight 36,254 persons passed over it. 
Hungerford was at that time the great focus of the 
Thames Steam Navigation, the embarkation and 
landing exceeding twO' millions per annum. The 
bridge was the work of Sir I. K. Brunei, and was 
a fine specimen of engineering skill. There were 
three spans, the central one between the piers being 
676 feet, or no feet more than the Menai Bridge, 
and second only to the span of the wire suspension 
bridge at Fribourg, which is nearly 900 feet. It 
was built without any scaffolding, with only a few 
ropes, and without any impediment to the naviga- 
tion of the river. The entire cost of the bridge was 
f 1 10,000, raised by a public company. 

The bridge was taken down in 1863, ^^^ the 
chains were carried to Clifton for the Suspension 
Bridge erecting there. The bridge of the South 
Eastern Railway at Charing Cross occupies the site 
of the old Hungerford Bridge. 

Many novelists, philanthropists, and newspaper 



I70 Dicftens' XonDon 

writers have dwelt largely upon the horrors of a 
series of subterranean chambers, extending beneath 
the Adelphi Terrace in the West Strand, and locally 
and popularly known as the " Adelphi Arches." 
To this day they are a forbidding, cavernous black 
hole, suggestive of nothing if not the horrors oi 
thievery, or even murder. They are, however, so 
well guarded by three policemen on " fixed point " 
duty that at night there is probably no more safe 
locality in all London than the former unsavoury 
neighbourhood, a statement that is herein confi- 
dently made by the writer, as based on a daily and 
nightly acquaintance with the locality of some years. 

Coupled in association with Dickens' reference 
to having played round about during his boyhood, 
while living in Lant Street, and working in War- 
ren's Blacking Factory, only two blocks away in 
Villiers Street, is also the memory of David Copper- 
field's strange liking for these " dark arches." Orig- 
inally these yawning crevices were constructed as 
a foundation for the " Adelphi Terrace," the home 
of the Savage Club, and of Garrick at one time, 
and novv overlooking the " Embankment Gardens," 
though formerly overhanging the actual river-bank 
itself. 

What wonder that these catacomb-like vaults 
should have been so ghostly reminiscent and sug- 



H)icftens* Xon&on 171 

gestive of the terrors associated with the " Jack 
Shepards " and " Jonathan Wilds," whose successors 
Hved in Dickens' day. One very great reaHty in 
connection with its unsavoury reputation is the tun- 
nel-like opening leading Strandward. Through this 
exit was the back door of a notorious " Coffee and 
Gambling House," like enough the " little, dirty, 
tumble-down public house " hard by Hungerford 
Stairs, where the M'icawbers located just before 
emigrating, and referred to by Dickens in " David 
Copperfield." Through this door persons of too 
confiding a disposition were lured by thieves and 
blacklegs, drugged, swindled, and thrown out bodily 
into the darksome tunnel to recover, if they returned 
to consciousness before discovered by the police, 
their dazed and befuddled wits as best they might. 
" The Adelphi " itself is one of those lovable 
backwaters of a London artery, which has only 
just escaped spoliation at the hands of the improver. 
A few months since it was proposed to raze and 
level off the whole neighbourhood as a site for the 
municipal offices of the Corporation of the City 
of London, but wire-pulling, influence, or what not, 
turned the current in another direction, and to-day 
there is left in all its original and winsome glory 
the famous Adelphi, planned and built by the broth- 



172 Dickens' XonC>on 

ers Adam, as a sort of acropolis as a site for institu- 
tions of learning and culture. 

In Dickens' time, though the " Embankment " 
was taking form, it lacked many of those adorn- 
ments which to^-day place it as one of the world's 
great thoroughfares. Immediately opposite on the 
fore-shore of the river is the Egyptian obelisk, one 
of the trio of which another is in the Place de la 
Concord at Paris, and the other in Central Park, 
New York. Here it was transferred to a new en- 
vironment, and since the seventies this pictured 
monolith of a former civilization has stood amid 
its uncontemporary surroundings, battered more 
sorely by thirty years oif London's wind and weather 
than by its ages of African sunshine. 

" Billingsgate " was one of the earliest water- 
gates of London, the first on the site having been 
built in the year 400 B. C, and named after Belin, 
King of the Britons. The present " Billingsgate 
Market " is a structure completed in 1870. Since 
1699 London's only entrepot for the edible finny 
tribe has been here, with certain rights vested in the 
ancient " Guild of Fishmongers," without cogni- 
zance of which it would not be possible to " obtain 
by purchase any fish for food." 

A stage floats in the river ofif the market, beside 
which float all manner of craft, from the humble 



lichens' Xon&on 173 

wherry to the ostentatious puffy little steamers who 
collect the cargoes of tlie North Sea fleet and rush 
them to market against all competitors. The market 
opens at five a. m., summer and winter. Moored to 
a buoy, a short distance from the shore, are always 
to be found one or more Dutch fishing-boats, cer- 
tain inalienable rights permitting " no more than 
three " to be at any or all times tied up here. There 
is among the native watermen themselves a guarded 
jealousy and contempt for these " furriners," and 
should the cable once be slipped, no other Dutchman 
would ever again be allowed to pick it up. Hence 
it is that by traditionary rights one or more of these 
curious stub-nosed, broad-beamed craft, like the 
Dutch hmis-vrow herself, are always tO' be seen. 

The Londoner found amusement at Whitsun- 
tide in a visit to Greenwich Fair, then an expedition 
of far greater importance than in later years, the 
journey having to be made by road. The typical 
" fish dinner " of Greenwich, as it obtained in the 
middle of the last century, was an extraordinary 
affair, perhaps the most curious repast which ever 
existed in the minds of a culinary genius, or a 
swindling hotel-keeper, — for that is about what 
they amounted to in the latter days of this popular 
function now thankfully past. 

Many and varied courses of fish, beginning with 



174 Dlcftens' Xont)on 

the famous " whitebait," the " little silver stars " 
of the poet's fancy, more or less skilfully prepared, 
were followed by such gastronomic unconventions 
as " Duck and Peas," " Beans and Bacon," and 
" Beef and Yorkshire," all arranged with due re- 
gard for inculcating an insatiable and expensive 
thirst, which was only allayed at the highest prices 
known to the bon vivant of a world-wide experience. 
For many years after Dickens' death in 1870, in- 
deed, until quite recent years, with only occasional 
lapses, the " Ministers of the Crown " were wont to 
dine at Greenwich, as a fitting Gargantuan orgy 
to the labours of a brain-racking session. 

As one who knows his London has said, you can 
get a much better fish dinner, as varied and much 
more attractive, in the neighbourhood oi Billings- 
gate, for the modest sum of two shillings. 

No mention of London riverside attractions can 
be made without enlarging somewhat upon the sor- 
did and unsavoury (in more senses than one) Lime- 
house Hole and Limehouse Reach. 

Redolent of much that is of the under world, 
these localities, with indeed those of all the water- 
side round about, have something of the fascination 
and glamour which surrounds a foreign clime it- 
self, ftere in " Brig Place," evidently an imaginary 
neighbourhood, Dickens placed the genial hook- 



H)lcl?ens' Xont)on 175 

armed Cuttle, and he must not only have studied 
these types upon the spot, but must have been 
enamoured of the salty sentiment which pervades 
the whole region from the notorious Ratclifife High- 
way on the north, now known by the more respect- 
able name of St. George's Street, made famous in 
the " Uncommercial Traveller," to the " Stairs " 
near Marshalsea on the south, where Dickens used 
to stroll of a morning before he was allowed to 
visit his father in the prison, and imagine those 
" astonishing fictions about the wharves and the 
Tower." 

It was at Limehouse, too, that Dickens' god- 
father, Hufifman, a rigger and sailmaker, lived, 
and with whom Dickens was so fond, when a boy, 
of making excursions roundabout the " Hole " and 
the " Reach " with their " foul and furtive boats." 

Returning westward one finds, adjoining Somer- 
set House, the famed Waterloo Bridge, great as 
to its utility and convenience, and splendid as to 
its appointments. " An exquisite combination of 
all that is most valuable in bridge architecture," 
wrote Knight in 1842; called also' by Canova, 
whom of late it is become the custom to decry, the 
finest bridge in Europe, and worth coming from 
Rome to see. It is the masterwork of one John 
Rennie, a Scotch schoolmaster, and was completed 



176 Dicftens* Xont)on 

in 18 1 7, and named after the decisive event achieved 
by His Majesty's forces twO' years before. It has 
ever been the one short cut into South London 
from all the west central region, and is the contin- 
uation of the roadway across the Strand — Welling- 
ton Street — intimately associated with Dickens by 
the building which formerly contained the offices 
of Household Words and the London chambers of 
Dickens' later years, 

Blackfriars Bridge follows immediately after the 
Temple Gardens, but, unlike Waterloo or the pres- 
ent London Bridge, is a work so altered and dis- 
figured from what the architect originally intended, 
as to be but a slummy perversion of an inanimate 
thing, which ought really tO' be essentially beautiful 
and elegant as useful. 

At this point was also the emhouchement of the 
" Fleet," suggestive of irregular marriages and the 
Fleet Prison, wherein Mr. Pickwick " sat for his 
picture," and suffered other indignities. 

As Dickens has said in the preface to " Pick- 
wick," " legal reforms have pared the claws by 
which a former public had suffered." The laws 
of imprisonment for debt have been altered, and the 
Fleet Prison pulled down. 

A little further on, up Ludgate Hill, though not 
really in the Thames district, is the " Old Bailey," 



Dicftens' Xon&on 177 

leading to " Newgate," whereon was the attack of 
the Gordon Rioters so vividly described in Chapter 
LXIV. of " Barnaby Rudge." The doorway which 
was battered down at the time is now in the pos- 
session of a London collector, and various other 
relics are continually finding their way into the 
salesroom since the entire structure was razed in 
1901. 

Southwark Bridge, an ordinary enough structure 
of stone piers and iron arches, opened another thor- 
oughfare to South London, between Blackfriars 
and the incongruous and ugly pillar known as the 
Monument, which marks the starting-point of the 
great fire of 1666, and is situated on the northerly 
end of the real and only " London Bridge " of the 
nursery rhyme. 

As recorded, it actually did fall down, as the 
result of an unusually high tide in 1091. As the 
historian of London Bridge has said, " a magnifi- 
cent bridge is a durable expression of an ideal in 
art, whether it be a simple arch across an humble 
brook, or a mighty structure across a noble river." 

The history of London Bridge is a lengthy ac- 
count of itself, and the period with which we have 
to deal carries but a tithe of the lore which sur- 
rounds it from its birth. 

It was said by Dion Cassius that a bridge stood 



178 Dickens' XonDon 

here in the reign of Claudius, but so far into an- 
tiquity is this (44 A. D.), that historians in general 
do not confirm it. What is commonly known as 
" Old London Bridge," with its houses, its shops, 
and its chapels, a good idea of which is obtained 
from the sixth plate of Hogarth's " Marriage a la 
Miode," was a wonderfully impressive thing in its 
day, and would be even now, did its like exist. 

The structures which roofed the bridge over, as 
it were, were pulled down ; and various reparations 
made from time to time preserved the old structure 
until, in 1824, was begun the present structure, 
from the designs of Rennie, who, however, died 
before the work was begun. It was opened by 
William IV. and Queen Adelaide in 1831, and occu- 
pies a site two hundred or more feet further up the 
river than the structure which it replaced, the re- 
mains of which were left standing until 1832. Tlius 
it is likely enough that Dickens crossed and re- 
crossed this famous storied bridge, many times and 
oft, when his family was living in Lant Street, in 
Southwark, while the father of the family was 
languishing in the iron-barred Marshalsea. 

As Laurence Sterne has truly said, " Matter 
grows under one's hands. Let no man say, * Come, 
I'll write a duodecimo.' " And so with such a swift- 
flowing itinerary as would follow the course of a 



Dicftens' Xon&on 179 

river, it is difficult to get, within a reasonably small 
compass, any full resume of the bordering topog- 
raphy of the Thames. All is reminiscent, in one 
way or another, of any phase of London life in 
any era, and sO' having proceeded thus far on the 
voyage without foundering, one cannot but drop 
down with the tide, and so to open sea. 

Below the metropolis of docks and moorings the 
river widens to meet the sea, so that any journey 
of observation must perforce be made upon its 
bosom rather than as a ramble along its banks. 

Blackwall, with its iron-works; Woolwich, with 
its arsenal; and Greenwich, with its hospital and 
observatory, are all landmarks by which the trav- 
eller to London, by sea, takes his reckoning of 
terra firma. 

The shipping of the Orient, the Baltic, the Con- 
tinent, or the mere coaster, with that unique species 
of floating thing, the Thames barge, all combine in 
an apparently inextricable tangle which only opens 
out in the estuary below Gravesend, which, with 
its departed glory and general air of decay, is the 
real casting-ofif point of seagoing craft. Here the 
" mud-pilot," as the river pilot is locally known, 
is dropped, and the " channel pilot " takes charge, 
and here last leave-takings are said and last mes- 
sages left behind. 



i8o 2)icftcns' Xon&on 

Opposite Gravesend, from where Dickens first 
set sail for America, is Tilbury Fort, a reminder of 
the glories of England's arms in the days of Eliz- 
abeth. It may be said to be the real outpost of 
London. Here passing from the " Lower Hope " 
into " Sea Reach," we fairly enter upon the estuary 
of the Thames. Here the river has rapidly ex- 
panded into an arm of the sea, having widened 
from two hundred and ninety yards at London 
Bridge to perhaps four and a half miles at the 
" London Stone " by Yantlet Creek, where the juris- 
diction of the Corporation of London ends. 

To the north the Essex shore trends rapidly away 
toward Yarmouth ; to the south straight to the east- 
ern end of the English Channel, past the historic 
Medway, with Gad's Hill Place and Higham. 

Beyond is Strood, Rochester, Chatham, Maid- 
stone, Canterbury, and Broadstairs, and with the 
latter place one takes leave, as it were, of England, 
Dickens, and his personal and literary associations 
therewith. 



MANNERS AND CUSTOMS 

LONDON is not a single city, but rather 
a sequence or confederation of cities. In 
its multifarious districts there is not only 
a division of labour, but a classification of society 

— grade rising above grade, separate yet blended 

— "a. mighty maze, but not without a plan." Says 
one of her most able and observing historians, 
" were we not accustomed to the admirable order 
that prevails, we should wonder how it was pre- 
served." The regular supply of the various food 
markets alone is a truly wonderful operation, includ- 
ing all the necessaries and, what the Londoner him- 
self supposes to be, all the luxuries of life. The 
method of distribution is truly astonishing, and 
only becomes less so to the liver in the midst of 
it all by reason of his varying degree of familiarity 
therewith. As to the means of sustenance, no less 
than livelihood, of a great mass of its population, 
that is equally a mystery. All among the lower 

classes are not Fagins nor yet Micawbers, How 

i8i 



i82 2)icl?ens' XonDon 

do the poor live who rise in the morning without 
a penny in their pockets ? How do they manage to 
sell their labour before they can earn the means of 
appeasing hunger? What are the contrivances on 
which they hit to carry on their humble traffic? 
These and similar questions are those which the 
economist and the city fathers not only have been 
obliged to heed, but have got still greater concern 
awaiting them ahead. Poverty and its allied crime, 
not necessarily brutalized inherent criminal instinct, 
but crime nevertheless, are the questions which have 
got to be met broadly, boldly, and on the most 
liberal lines by those who are responsible for Lon- 
don's welfare. 

During the first half of the nineteenth century 
the economists will tell one that England's com- 
mercial industries stagnated, but perhaps the pro- 
digious leaps which it was taking in the new 
competitive forces of the new world made this 
theory into a condition. 

In general, however, the tastes of the people wei*e 
improving, and with the freedom of the newspaper 
press, and the spread of general literature, there 
came a desire for many elegancies and refinements 
hitherto disregarded. 

The foundation ol the British Museum in 1750, 
by the purchase of the library and collection of Sir 



2)icl?ens' XonOon 183 

Hans Sloane, and Montagu House, gave an early 
impetus to the movement, which was again furthered 
when, in 1801, George IH. presented a collection of 
Egyptian antiquities, and in 1805 and 1806 were 
purchased the Townley and Elgin marbles respec- 
tively. The Museum continued to increase until, 
in 1823, when George IV. presented his father's 
library of sixty-five thousand volumes, Montagu 
House was found to be quite inadequate for 
its purpose, and the present building, designed 
by Sir Robert Smirke, and completed in 1827, was 
erected on its site. In making this gift, the king 
said, " for the purpose oi advancing the literature 
of his country, and as a just tribute to the memory 
of a parent whose life was adorned with every 
public and private virtue." 

The magnificent reading-room was not con- 
structed until 1855-57, but it became a " felt want " 
from the time when George IV. made his valuable 
presentation to the Museum. The great " reading 
age " was then only in its infancy. 

Early in 1830 George IV. fell ill, and on the 25th 
of June he died. During his regency, although he 
himself had little to do with the matter, his name 
was associated with many splendid triumphs, by 
the marvellous progress of intellect, and by remark- 
able improvements in the liberal arts. With fine 



i84 2)ichens' Xon&on 

abilities and charming manners, England might 
have been proud of such a king, but he squandered 
his talents for his own gratification; alienated him- 
self from all right-minded men ; lived a disgraceful 
life, and died the subject of almost universal con- 
tempt. His epitaph has been written thus : " He 
was a bad son, a bad husband, a bad father, a bad 
subject, a bad monarch, and a bad friend." 

The memory of old London is in no way kept 
more lively than by the numerous City Companies 
or Guilds. Established with a good purpose, they 
rendered useful enough service in their day, but 
within the last half-century their power and influ- 
ence has waned, until to-day but three, of the eighty 
or more, are actually considered as Trading Com- 
panies, — the Goldsmiths', the Apothecaries' and 
the Stationers'. 

The first companies, or fraternities, of Anglo- 
Saxon times gradually evolved themselves into the 
positive forms in which they have endured till to- 
day. Just when this evolution came about is ob- 
scure. An extinct " Knighten Guild " was licensed 
by Edgar, a reminiscence of which is supposed to 
exist to-day in Nightingale Lane, where the Guild 
was known to have been located. 

The oldest of the City Companies now existing 
is the Weavers' Company, having received its char- 



Bicftens' Xon&on 185 

ter from Henry II. Though licensed, these trade 
organizations were not incorporated until the reign 
of Edward III., who generously enrolled himself 
as a member of the Merchant Tailors. 

At this time it was ordained that all artificers 
should choose their trade, and, having chosen it, 
should practise no other; hence it was that these 
'■ Guilds " grew to such a position of wealth and 
influence, the ancient prototype, doubtless, of the 
modern " labour unions." 

The twelve great City Companies, whose gov- 
ernors ride about in the lord mayor's procession 
of the 9th of November of each year, are, in order 
of precedence, ranked as follows : Mercers, Grocers, 
Drapers, Fishmongers, Goldsmiths, Skinners, Mer- 
chant Tailors, Haberdashers, Salters, Ironmongers, 
Vintners, Cloth-workers. 

Allied with these are eighty odd other companies 
divided into three classes : 

I. Those exercising a control over their trades : 
Goldsmiths, Apothecaries. 

II. Those exercising the right of search or mark- 
ine: of wares : the Stationers, at whose " hall " 
must be entered all books for copyright; the Gun- 
makers, who " prove " all London-made guns ; 
Saddlers, Pewterers, and Plumbers. 

III. Companies into which persons carrying on 



i86 2)icftens* Xonbon 

certain occupations are compelled to enter : Apothe- 
caries, Brewers, Builders, etc. 

The " halls," as they are called, are for the most 
part extensive quadrangular buildings with a court- 
yard in the centre. 

The most pretentious, from an architectural point 
of view, are Goldsmiths' Hall in Foster Lane, and 
Ironmongers' Hall in Fenchurch Street. 

Fishmongers' Hall, at the northwest angle of 
London Bridge, built in 1831, is a handsome struc- 
ture after the Greek order, with a fine dining-room. 
The Merchant Tailors' Hall, in Threadneedle Street, 
has a wonderful banquet-room, with portraits of 
most of the Kings of England, since Henry VHI., 
adorning its walls. 

Stationers' Hall will perhaps be of the greatest 
interest to readers of this book. All who have to 
do with letters have a certain regard for the mys- 
ticism which circles around the words, " Entered at 
Stationers' Hall." 

The Stationers' Company was incorporated in 
1557; it exercised a virtual monopoly of printing 
almanacs under a charter of James I. until 1775, 
when the judges of the Court of Common Pleas 
decided that their professed patent of monopoly 
was worthless, the Crown having no power to grant 
any such exclusive right. Doubtless many another 



Dickens' Xonbon 187 

archaic statute is of a like invalidity did but some 
protestful person choose to take issue therewith. The 
number of freemen of the company is about i,ioo; 
that of the livery about 450. Printers were for- 
merly obliged to be apprenticed to a member of the 
company, and all publications for copyright must be 
entered at their hall. The register of the works so 
entered for publication commenced from 1557, and 
is valuable for the light it throws on many points 
of literary history. The Copyright Act imposes on 
the company the additional duty of registering all 
assignments of copyrights. The charities of the 
company are numerous. In Dickens' time Almanac 
Day (Noveml^er 22d) was a busy day at the hall, 
but tlie great interest in this species of astrological 
superstition has waned, and, generally speaking, this 
day, like all others, is of great quietude and repose 
in these noble halls, where bewhiskered function- 
aries amble slowly through the routine in which 
blue paper documents with bright orange coloured 
stamps form the only note of liveliness in the entire 
ensemble. 

The Goldsmiths' Company assays all the gold and 
silver plate manufactured in the metropolis, and 
stamps it with the " hall-mark," which varies each 
year, so it is thus possible to tell exactly the year in 
which any piece of London plate was produced. 



i88 2)tcftens' Xon^on 

The oait-of-door amusements of society were at 
this time, as now, made much of. The turf, cricket, 
and riding to hounds being those functions which 
took the Londoner far afield. Nearer at home were 
the charms of Richmond, with its river, and the 
Star and Garter, and the Great Regatta at Henley, 
distinctly an affair of the younger element. 

Tea-gardens, once highly popular, had fallen into 
disrepute so far as " society " was concerned. Bag- 
nigge Wells, Merlin's Cave, the London Spa, Mary- 
lebone Gardens, Cromwell's Gardens, Jenny's Whim, 
were all tea-gardens, with recesses, and avenues, and 
alcoves for love-making and tea-drinking, where 
an orchestra discoursed sweet music or an organ 
served as a substitute. An intelligent foreigner, 
who had published an account of his impressions 
of England, remarked : " The English take a great 
delight in the public gardens, near the metropolis, 
where they assemble and drink tea together in the 
open air. The number of these in the capital is 
amazing, and the order, regularity, neatness, and 
even elegance of them are truly admirable. They 
are, however, very rarely frequented by people of 
fashion; but the middle and lower ranks go there 
often, and seem much delighted with the music of 
an organ, which is usually played in an adjoining 
building." 



Dicftens* Xon^on 189 

Vauxhall, the Arabia Felix of the youth of the 
eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, was still a fash- 
ionable resort, " a very pandemonium of society 
immorality," says a historian. This can well be 
believed if the many stories current concerning 
" prince, duke, and noble, and much mob besides," 
are accepted. 

" Here the ''prentice from Aldgate may ogle a toast ! 
Here his Worship must elbow the knight of the post / 
For the wicket is free to the great and the small j — 
Sing Tantarara — Vauxhall ! Vauxhall ! " 

The first authentic notice of Vauxhall Gardens 
appears in the record of the Duchy of Corn- 
wall in 161 5, when for twO' hundred years, through 
the changes of successive ages, there was conducted 
a round of gaiety and abandon unlike any other 
Anglo-Saxon institution. Open, generally, only 
during the summer months, the entertainment va- 
ried from vocal and instrumental music to acrobats, 
" burlettas," " promenades," and other attractions oi 
a more intellectual nature, and, it is to be feared, 
likewise of a lesser as well. 

The exhibition usually wound up with a display of 
fireworks, set off at midnight. From 1830 to 1850 
the gardens were at the very height of their later 
festivity, but during the next decade they finally 



190 Bichens' Xonbon 

sank into insignificance, and at last flickered out 
in favour of the more staid and sad amusements of 
the later Victorian period. 

As for the indoor pleasures of society at this time, 
there were the theatre, the opera, and the concert- 
room. Dining at a popular restaurant or a gigantic 
hotel had not been thought of. There were, to 
be sure, the " assembly-rooms " and the " supper- 
rooms," but there were many more establishments 
which catered to the pleasures of the masculine 
mind and taste than provided a fare of food and 
amusement which was acceptable to the feminine 
palate. 

Of the men's clubs, Brookes' and White's had 
long been established, and, though of the proprie- 
tary order, were sufficiently attractive and exclusive 
to have become very popular and highly successful. 
The other class were those establishments which 
fulfil the true spirit and province of a club, — where 
an association of gentlemen join together in the 
expense of furnishing accommodation of refresh- 
ment and reading and lounging rooms. This was 
the basis on which the most ambitious clubs were 
founded ; what they have degenerated into, in some 
instances, would defy even a rash man tO' attempt 
to diagnose, though many are still nm on the con- 
servative lines which do not open their doors to 



2)ic{?ens' Xon&on 191 

strangers, even on introduction, as with the famous 
Athenccum Club. 

Other dubs, whose names were already familiar 
in the London of Dickens' day, were the Carleton, 
Conservative, Reform, University, and perhaps a 
score of others. 

As is well known, Dickens was an inordinate 
lover of the drama, a patron of the theatre himself, 
and an amateur actor of no mean capabilities. As 
early as 1837 he had written an operetta, " The 
Village Coquettes," which he had dedicated to Har- 
ley. It was performed, for the first time, on De- 
cember 6, 1836, at the St. James' Theatre. A Lon- 
don collector possesses the original " hand-bill," an- 
nouncing a performance of " Used Up " and " Mr. 
Nightingale's Diary," at the Philharmonic Hall, 
Liverpool, in 1852, in which Dickens, Sir John 
Tenniel, and M,ark Lemon took part; also a play- 
bill of the performance of " The Frozen Deep," 
at the " Gallery of Illustration," on Regent Street, 
on July 4, 1857, " by Charles Dickens and his ama- 
teur company before Queen Victoria and the Royal 
Family." 

The painting (1846) by C. R. Leslie, R. A., of 
Dickens as Captain Boabdil, in Ben Jonson's play 
of " Every Man in His Humour," is familiar to all 
Dickens lovers. 



192 2)icKen6' Xont)on 

The theatres of. London, during the later years 
of Dickens' life, may be divided into two classes : 
those which were under " royal patronage," and 
those more or less independent theatres which, if 
ever visited by royalty, were favoured with more 
or less unexpected and infrequent visits. 

Of the first class, where the aristocracy, and the 
royal family as well, were pretty sure to be found 
at all important performances, the most notable 
were " Her Majesty's," " The Royal Italian Opera 
House," " The Theatre Royal, Drury Lane." Of 
the latter class, the most famous — and who shall 
not say the most deservedly so — were the " Hay- 
market Theatre," " The Adelphi," " The Lyceum," 
and the " St. James' Theatre." 

" Her Majesty's Theatre," on the western side of 
the Haymarket, was the original of the two Italian 
opera-houses in London; it was built in 1790, on 
the site of an older theatre, burnt down in 1867, and 
rebuilt in 1869. Tlie freehold of some of the boxes 
was sold for as much as £8,000 each. The opera 
season was generally from March tO' August; but 
the main attractions and the largest audiences were 
found from May tO' July. The " Royal Italian 
Opera House " occupied the site of the former Co- 
vent Garden Theatre, as it does to^-day, and was 
built in 1858 on the ruins of one destroyed by fire. 



Blcftens' Xonbon 193 

The building is very remarkable, both within and 
without. Italian opera was produced here with a 
completeness scarcely paralleled in Europe. When 
not required for Italian operas, the building was 
often occupied by an " English Opera Company," 
or occasionally for miscellaneous concerts. The 
" Floral Hall " adjoins this theatre on the Covent 
Garden side. " Drury Lane Theatre," the fourth 
on the same site, was built in 1812; its glories live 
in the past, for the legitimate drama now alternates 
there with entertainments of a more spectacular and 
melodramatic character, and the Christmas panto- 
mimes, that purely indigenous English institution. 
The " Haymarket Theatre," exactly opposite " Her 
Majesty's," was built in 182 1; under Mr. Buck- 
stone's management, comedy and farce were chiefly 
performed. The " Adelphi Theatre," in the Strand, 
near Southampton Street, was rebuilt in 1858, when 
it had for a quarter of a century been celebrated for 
melodramas, and for the attractiveness of its comic 
actors. The " Lyceum Theatre," or " English Opera 
House," at the corner of Wellington Street, Strand, 
was built in 1834 as an English opera-house, but 
its fortunes were fluctuating, and the performances 
not of a definite kind. This was the house latterly 
taken over by Sir Henry Irving. The " Princess' 
Theatre," on the north side of Oxford Street, was 



194 Bicftens' Xon&on 

built in 1830; after a few years of opera and mis- 
cellaneous dramas, it became the scene of Mr. 
Charles Kean's Shakespearian revivals, and now 
resembles most of the other theatres. " St. James' 
Theatre," in King Street, St. James', was built for 
Braham, the celebrated singer. " The Olympic " 
was a small house in Wych Street, Drury Lane, 
now destroyed. " The Strand Theatre " was famous 
for its burlesque extravaganzas, a form of theatrical 
amusement which of late has become exceedingly 
popular. The " New Globe Theatre " (destroyed 
so late as 1902) and "The Gaiety" (at the stage 
entrance of which are the old offices of Good Words, 
so frequently made use of by Dickens in the later 
years of his life), and "The Vaudeville," were 
given over to musical comedy and farce. " The 
Adelphi," though newly constructed at that time, 
was then, as now, the home of melodrama. 

Others still recognized as popular and prosperous 
houses were "The Court Theatre," Sloane Square; 
" The Royalty," in Soho; " The Queen's," in Long- 
acre; "The Prince of Wales'," in Tottenham 
Street, formerly the Tottenham Theatre. Robert- 
son's comedies of " Caste," " Our Boys," etc., were 
favourite pieces there. " Sadler's Wells," " Mary- 
lebone Theatre," " The Brittania," at Hoxton, 
" The Standard," in Shoreditch, and " The Pavil- 



H)ic[?ens' Xondon 195 

ion," in Whitechapel, were all notable for size and 
popularity, albeit those latterly mentioned were of 
a cheaper class. 

South of the river were " Astley's," an old amphi- 
theatre, " The Surrey Theatre," and " The Vic- 
toria." 

At this time (1870) it was estimated that four 
thousand persons were employed in London thea- 
tres, supporting twelve thousand persons. The pub- 
lic expenditure thereon was estimated at £350,000 
annually. 

Of " concert rooms," there were " Exeter Hall," 
" St. James' Hall," " Hanover Square Rooms," 
" Floral Hall," connected with the Co vent Garden 
Opera, " Willis' Rooms," and the " Queen's Con- 
cert Rooms," connected with " Her Majesty's Thea- 
tre." 

Here were given the performances of such or- 
ganizations as " The Sacred Harmonic Society," 
" The Philharmonic Society," " The Musical Un- 
ion," and the " Glee and Madrigal Societies," " The 
Beethoven Society," and others. 

" Entertainments," an indefinite and mysterious 
word, something akin to the olla podrida of sunny 
Spain, abounded. 

Usually they were a sort of musical or sketch 
entertainment, thoroughly innocuous, and, while 



196 H)icfeens' XonC)on 

attaining a certain amount of popularity and pre- 
sumably success to their projectors, were of a nature 
only amusing to the completely ennuied or juvenile 
temperament. Readings by various persons, more 
or less celebrated, not forgetting the name of Dick- 
ens, attracted, properly enough, huge crowds, who 
were willing to pay high prices to hear a popular 
author interpret his works. A species of lion-tam- 
ing, which, if not exactly exciting, is harmless and 
withal edifying. The last two varieties of enter- 
tainment usually took place in the " Egyptian Hall," 
in Piccadilly, " St. James' Hall," or " The Gallery 
of Illustration " in Regent Street. 

Of miscellaneous amusements, appealing rather 
more to the middle class than the actual society ele- 
ment, — if one really knows what species of human 
being actually makes up that vague body, — were 
such attractions as were offered by " Madame Tus- 
saud's Waxwork Exhibition," which suggests at 
once to the lover of Dickens Mrs. Jarley's similar 
establishment, and such industrial exhibitions as 
took place from time to time, the most important of 
the period of which this book treats being, of course, 
the first great International Exhibition, held in 
Hyde Park in 185 1. 

Further down the social scale the amusements 
were a variation only of degree, not of kind. 



Bicftens' Xon5on 197 

The lower classes had their coffee-shops and, sup- 
posedly, in some degree the gin-palaces, which 
however, mostly existed in the picturesque vocab- 
ulary of the " smug " reformer. 

The tavern, the chop-house, and the dining-room 
were variants only of the " assembly-rooms," the 
" clubs," and the grand establishments of the upper 
circles, and in a way performed the same function, 
— provided entertainment for mankind. 

As for amusements pure and simple, there was 
the " music-hall," which, quoting a mid- Victorian 
writer, was a place where held forth a " species 
of musical performance, a singular compound of 
poor foreign music, but indifferently executed, and 
interspersed with comic songs of a most extrav- 
agant kind, to which is added or interpolated 
zvhat the performers please . to term ' nigger ' 
dances, athletic and rope-dancing feats, the whole 
accompanied by much drinking and smoking." 
Which will pass as a good enough description to 
apply to certain establishments of this class to-day, 
but which, in reality, loses considerable of its force 
by reason of its slurring resentment of what was 
in a way an invasion of a foreign custom which 
might be expected, sooner or later, to crowd out the 
conventional and sad amusements which in the 
main held forth, and which in a measure has since 



X98 2)icftens' Xon&on 

taken place. The only bearing that the matter has 
to the subject of this book is that some large num- 
bers of the great public which, between sunset and 
its sleeping hours, must perforce be amused in some 
way, is to-day, as in days gone by, none too par- 
ticular as to what means are taken to accomplish it. 

There is a definite species of depravity which is 
supposed to be peculiarly the attribute of the lower 
classes. If it exists at all to-day, it probably does 
lie with the lower classes, but contemporary opinion 
points to the fact that it was not alone in those days 
the lower classes who sought enjoyment from the 
cockpit, the dog fight, the prize ring, or the more 
ancient bull-baiting, all of which existed to some 
degree in the early nineteenth century. Truly the 
influence of the Georges on society, of whatever 
class, must have been cruelly debasing, and it was 
not to be expected that the early years of Victoria's 
reign should have been able to eradicate it thor- 
oughly, and though such desires may never be en- 
tirely abolished, they are, in the main, not publicly 
recognized or openly permitted to-day, a fact which 
is greatly to the credit of the improved taste of the 
age in which we live. 

Formerly it was said that there was but one class 
of hotels in and near London of which the charges 
could be stated with any degree of precision. The 



Dicftens' XonOon 199 

old hotels, both at the West End and in the City, 
kept nO' printed tariff, and were not accustomed even 
to be asked beforehand as to their charges. Most 
of the visitors were more or less recommended by 
guests who had already sojourned at these estab- 
lishments, and who could give information as to 
what they had paid. Some of the hotels declined 
even to receive guests except by previous written 
application, or by direct introduction, and would 
rather be without those who would regard the bill 
with economical scrutiny. 

Of these old-fashioned hotels, — barbarous relics 
of another day, — few are to be found now, and, 
though existing in reality, are being fast robbed 
of their clientiele, which demand something more 
in the way of conveniences — with no diminution 
of comforts — than it were possible to get in the 
two or three private houses thrown into one, and 
dubbed by the smugly respectable title of " Private 
Hotel." 

Other establishments did exist, it is true, in Dick- 
ens' time: "The Golden Cross" and " Morley's," 
" Haxell's," and others of such class, from which 
coaches still ran to near-by towns, and which houses 
catered principally for the country visitor or the 
avowed commercially inclined. But aside from 
these, and the exclusive and presumably extrava- 



200 2)icl?ens' XouDon 

gant class of smaller houses, represented by such 
names as " Claridge's," " Fenton's," " Limner's," 
et als., there was no other accommodation except 
the " taverns " of masculine propensities of Fleet 
Street and the City generally. 

The great joint stock hotels, such as " The Met- 
ropole," " The Savoy," and " The Cecil," did not 
come into being until well toward the end of Dick- 
ens' life, if we except the excellent and convenient 
railway hotels, such as made their appearance a 
few years earlier, as " Euston," " King's Cross," 
and " Victoria." The first of the really great mod- 
ern caravanserais are best represented by those now 
somewhat out-of-date establishments, the " West- 
minster Palace," " Inns of Court," " Alexandra," 
and others of the same ilk, while such as the magnif- 
icently appointed group of hotels to be found in 
the West Strand, Northumberland Avenue, or in 
Pall Mall were unthought of. 

The prevailing customs of an era, with respect 
to clubs, taverns, coffee-houses, etc., mark signally 
the spirit of the age. The taverns of London, prop- 
erly so called, were, in the earliest days of their 
prime, distinguished, each, for its particular class 
of visitors. The wits and poets met at " Will's " 
in Covent Garden, and the politicians at " St. 
James' CofTee-House," from which Steele often 



2)icl?ens' XonDon 201 

dated his Tatler. Later, in the forties, there were 
perhaps five hundred houses of entertainment, as 
distinguished from the ordinary " pubHc house," 
or the more ambitious hoteh 

The " dining-rooms," " a la mode beef shops," 
and " chop-houses " abounded in the " City," and 
with unvarying monotony served four, six, or nine- 
penny " plates " with astonishing rapidity, quite 
rivalling in a way the modern " quick lunch," The 
waiter was usually servile, and in such places 
as the " Cheshire Cheese," " Simpson's," and 
" Thomas'," was and is still active. He was a 
species of humanity chiefly distinguished for a 
cryptogrammatic system of reckoning your account, 
and the possessor of as choice a crop of beneath- 
the-chin whiskers as ever graced a Galway or a 
County Antrim squireen. 

The London City waiter, as distinguished from 
his brethren of the West End, who are most Teu- 
tonic, is a unique character. Here is Leigh Hunt's 
picture of one: 

" He has no feeling of noise ; even a loaf with 
him is hardly a loaf ; it is so many * breads.' His 
longest speech is making out a bill viva voce, — 
' Two beefs, one potato, three ales, two wines, six 
and two pence.' " 

A unique institution existed during the first quar- 



202 H)fcf?ens' XonOon 

ter of the last century. Some of Dickens' char- 
acters, if not Dickens himself, must have known 
something of the sort. Charles Knight tells of more 
than one establishment in the vicinity of the " Royal 
Exchange," where a sort of public gridiron was kept 
always at hand, for broiling a chop or steak which 
had been bought by the customer himself at a neigh- 
bouring butcher's. For this service, the small sum 
of a penny was charged, the profit tO' the house 
probably arising from the sale of potable refresh- 
ments. 

The houses which were famous for " fine old 
cheese," " baked potatoes," " mutton or pork pies," 
" sheep's trotters," or " pig's faces," were mostly 
found, or, at least, were at their best, in the " City," 
though they formed an humble and non-fastidious 
method of purveying to the demands of hunger, 
in that the establishments catered, more particularly, 
to the economically inclined, or even the poorer ele- 
ment of city workers. 

The rise from these City eating-houses to the 
more ambitiously expensive caterers of the " West 
End " was gradual. Prices and the appointments 
increased as one journeyed westward through Fleet 
Street, the Strand, to Piccadilly and Regent Street. 

Another institution peculiar to London, in its plan 
and scope at least, was the " cofifee-house " of 



Dicftens' Xon&on 203 

1840, evolved from those of an earlier generation, 
but performing, in a way, similar functions. 

At this time a " House of Commons Committee 
of Inquiry into the Operation of Import Duties " 
— as was its stupendous title — elicited some re- 
markable facts concerning the fast increasing num- 
ber of *' coffee-houses," which had grown from 
ten or twelve to eighteen hundred in twenty-five 
years. One Pamphilon, who' appears to have been 
the most successful, catering to five hundred or 
more persons per day, gave evidence to the effect 
that his house was frequented mostly by " lawyers, 
clerks, and commercial men, some of them manag- 
ing clerks, many solicitors, and highly respectable 
gentlemen, who take coffee in the middle of the 
day in preference tO' a more stimulating drink. . . . 
at the present moment, besides a great number of 
newspapers every day, I am compelled tO' take in 
an increasing number of high-class periodicals. . . . 
/ find there is an increasing demand for a better 
class of reading." 

And thus we see, at that day, even as before and 
since, a very intimate relation between good living 
and good reading. The practical person, the wary 
pedant, and the supercritical will scoff at this, but 
let it stand. 

The " cigar divans " and " chess rooms " were 



204 Dicftens' Xon&on 

modifications, in a way, of the " coffee-house," 
though serving mainly evening refreshment, cof- 
fee and a " fine Havana " being ample for the 
needs of him who would ponder three or four 
hours over a game of chess. 

Of the stilly night, there was another class of 
peripatetic caterers, the " sandwich man," the 
" baked 'tato man," the old women whO' served 
" hot coffee " to coachmen, and the more ambitious 
" coffee-stall," which must have been the progenitor 
of the " Owl Lunch " wagons of the United States. 

The baked potato man was of Victorian growth, 
and speedily became a recognized and popular func- 
tionary of his kind. His apparatus was not cum- 
brous, and was gaudy with brightly polished copper, 
and a headlight that flared like that of a modern 
locomotive. He sprang into being somewhere in 
the neighbourhood of St. George's Fields, near 
" Guy's," Lant Street, and Marshalsea of Dick- 
enesque renown, and soon spread his operations 
to every part of London. 

The food supply of London and such social and 
economic problems as arise out of it are usually 
ignored by the mere guide-book, and, like enough, 
it will be assumed by many to have little to do with 
the purport of a volume such as the present. As 
a matter of fact, in one way or another, it has a 



Dicftens' XonDon 205 

great deal to do with the Hfe of the day, using the 
word in its broadest sense. 

England, as is well recognized by all, is wholly 
subservient to the conditions of trade, so far as 
edible commodities are concerned, throughout the 
world. Its beef, its corn, and its flour mainly come 
from America. Its teas, coffees, and spices mostly 
from other foreign nations, until latterly, when 
India and Ceylon have come to the fore with re- 
gard to the first named of these. Its mutton from 
New Zealand or Australia, and even potatoes from 
France, butter and eggs from Denmark and Brit- 
tany, until one is inclined to wonder what species 
of food product is really indigenous to Britain. At 
any rate, London is a vast caravanserai which has 
daily to be fed and clothed with supplies brought 
from the outer world. 

In spite O'f the world-wide fame of the great 
markets of " Covent Garden," " Smithfield," and 
" Billingsgate," London is wofully deficient in 
those intermediaries between the wholesaler and the 
consumer, the public market, as it exists in most 
Continental cities and in America. 

An article in the Quarterly Review, in Dickens' 
day, — and it may be inferred things have only 
changed to a degree since that time, — illustrated, 
in a whimsical way, the vastness of the supply sys- 



2o6 Dicftens' Xon&on 

tern. The following is described as the supply of 
meat, poultry, bread, and beer, for one year: 72 
miles of oxen, 10 abreast; 120 miles of sheep, do.; 
7 miles of calves, do. ; 9 miles of pigs, do. ; 50 acres 
of poultry, close together; 20 miles of hares and 
rabbits, 100 abreast ; a pyramid of loaves of bread, 
600 feet square, and thrice the height of St. Paul's ; 
1,000 columns of hogsheads of beer, each i mile 
high. In mere bulk this perhaps does not convey 
the impression of large figures, but it is certainly 
very expressive to imagine, for instance, that one 
has to eat his way through 72 miles of oxen. 

The water used in the metropolis was chiefly sup- 
plied by the Thames, and by an artificial channel 
called the New River, which entered on the north 
side of the metropolis. The water is naturally good 
and soft. The spots at which it is raised from the 
Thames used to be within the bounds of the metrop- 
olis, at no great distance from the mouths of com- 
mon sewers ; but it is now obtained from parts of 
the river much higher up, and undergoes a very 
extensive filtration, with which eight companies are 
concerned. The returns of the registrar-general 
showed that the average daily supply of water for 
all purposes to the London population, during 
August, 1870, was 127,649,728 gallons, of which 
it is estimated the supply for domestic purposes 



Dtcftens' Xon&on 207 

amounted to about 90,000,000 gallons. The total 
number of houses fed was 512,540. The metropolis 
draws its coal supplies principally from the neigh- 
bourhood of Newcastle, but largely also from cer- 
tain inland counties, the import from the latter being 
by railway. Newcastle coal is preferred. It ar- 
rives in vessels devoted exclusively to the trade; 
and so many and so excessive are the duties and 
profits affecting the article, that a ton of coal, which 
can be purchased at Newcastle for 6s. or ys., costs, 
to a consumer in London, from 28^-. to 33^. The 
quantity of coal brought to London annually much 
exceeds 6,000,000 tons, of which considerably more 
than 2,000,000 come by railway. 

As for the markets themselves, " Billingsgate," 
the great depot for the distribution of fish, is de- 
scribed in that section devoted to the Thames. 

" Smithfield," is the great wholesale cattle market, 
while " Leadenhall " Market, in the very heart of 
the business world of London, is headquarters for 
poultry. 

A detailed description of " Covent Garden 
Market," which deals with vegetables, fruits, and 
flowers only, must here suffice. 

Covent Garden Market occupies a site which is 
exceedingly central to the metropolis. It was once 
the garden to the abbey and convent of Westmin- 



2o8 ©icftens' XonOon 

ster: hence the name Convent or Covent. At the 
suppression of the reHgious houses in Henry VIII. 's 
reign, it devolved to the Crow^n. Edward VI. gave 
it to the Duke of Somerset; on his attainder it 
was granted to the Earl of Bedford, and in the 
Russell family it has since remained. From a de- 
sign of Inigo Jones, who built the banqueting-room 
at Whitehall, the York Water Gate, and other archi- 
tectural glories of London, it was intended to have 
surrounded it with a colonnade; but the north and 
a part of the east sides only were completed. The 
fruit and vegetable markets were rebuilt in 1829-30. 
The west side is occupied by the parish church of 
St. Paul's, noticeable for its massive roof and por- 
tico. Butler, author of " Hudibras," lies in its 
graveyard, without a stone to mark the spot. In 
1 72 1, however, a cenotaph was erected in his hon- 
our in Westminster Abbey. The election of mem- 
bers to serve in Parliament for the city of West- 
minster was formerly held in front of this church, 
the hustings for receiving the votes being temporary 
buildings. The south side is occupied by a row of 
brick dwellings. Within this square thus enclosed 
the finest fruit and vegetables from home and for- 
eign growers are exposed for sale, cabbages and 
carrots from Essex and Surrey, tomatoes and as- 
paragus from France and Spain, oranges from Se- 



2)icftens* Xon^on 209 

ville and Jaffa, pines from Singapore, and bananas 
from the West Indies, not forgetting the humble 
but necessary potato from Jersey, Guernsey, or 
Brittany. A large paved space surrounding the 
interior square is occupied by the market-gardeners, 
who, as early as four or five in the morning, have 
carted the produce of their grounds, and wait to 
dispose of it to dealers in fruit and vegetables re- 
siding in different parts of London; any remainder 
is sold to persons who have standings in the market. 
Within this paved space rows of shops are con- 
veniently arranged for the display of the choicest 
fruits of the season : the productions of the forcing- 
house, and the results of horticultural skill, appear 
in all their beauty. There are also conservatories, 
in which every beauty of the flower-garden may be 
obtained, from the rare exotic to the simplest native 
flower. The Floral Hall, close to Covent Garden 
Opera House, has an entrance from the northeast 
corner of the market, to which it is a sort of ap- 
pendage, and to the theatre. Balls, concerts, etc., 
are occasionally given here. The Farringdon, Bor- 
ough, Portman, Spitalfields, and other vegetable 
markets, are small imitations of that at Covent 
Garden. 

The greater part of the corn, meaning, in this case, 
zvheat, as well as maize, as Indian corn is known 



2IO H)icftens' Xont)on 

throughout Great Britain, used for bread and other 
purposes in the metropolis, is sold by corn-factors 
at the Corn Exchange, Mark Lane; but the corn it- 
self is not taken to that place. Enormous quantities 
of flour are also brought in, having been ground 
at mills in the country and in foreign parts. 

The beer and ale consumed in the metropolis is, 
of course, vast in quantity, beyond comprehension 
to the layman. If one could obtain admission to 
one of the long-standing establishments of Messrs. 
Barclay & Perkins or Truman & Hanbury, whose 
names are more than familiar to all who travel 
London streets, he would there see vessels and 
operations astonishing for their magnitude — bins 
that are filled with 2,000 quarters of malt every 
week ; brewing-rooms nearly as large as Westmins- 
ter Hall; fermenting vessels holding 1,500 barrels 
each; a beer-tank large enough to float an up-river 
steamer ; vats containing 100,000 gallons each ; and 
60,000 casks. 



PAST AND PRESENT 

rHE American is keenly alive to all the 
natural and added beauties of English 
life, and even more so of London. He 
does not like to have his ideals dispelled, or to find 
that some shrine at which he would worship has 
disappeared for ever, like some " solemn vision and 
bright silver dream," as becomes a minstrel. For 
him are the traditions and associations, the sights 
and sounds, which, as he justly says, have no mean- 
ing or no existence for the " fashionable lounger " 
and the " casual passenger." " The Barbican does 
not to every one summon the austere memory of 
Milton; nor Holborn raise the melancholy shade 
of Chatterton; nor Tower Hill arouse the gloomy 
ghost of Otway; nor Hampstead lure forth the 
sunny figure of Steele and the passionate face of 
Keats; nor old Northumberland Street suggest the 
burly presence of * rare Ben Jonson ; ' nor opulent 
Kensington revive the stately head of Addison; 
nor a certain window in Wellington Street reveal 



212 Dicftens' Xon&on 

in fancy's picture the rugged lineaments and splen- 
did eyes of Dickens." But to the true pilgrim Lon- 
don speaks like the diapason of a great organ. '* He 
stands amid achievements that are finished, careers 
that are consummated, great deeds that are done, 
great memories that are immortal; he views and 
comprehends the sum of all that is possible to human 
thought, passion, and labour, and then — high over 
mighty London, above the dome of St. Paul's 
Cathedral, piercing the clouds, greeting the sun, 
drawing unto itself all the tremendous life of the 
great city and all the meaning of its past and pres- 
ent — the golden cross of Christ." 

The regular old-fashioned coaches of London 
were from the first to third quarters of the nine- 
teenth century supplanted by the ark-like omnibus, 
which even till to-day rumbles roughly through 
London streets. Most of the places within twenty 
miles of the metropolis, on every side, were thus 
supplied with the new means of transportation. 
The first omnibus was started by Mr. Shillibeer, 
from Paddington to the Bank, July 4, 1829. From 
this time to 28th June, 1870, — the number of 
such vehicles licensed in the Metropolitan District 
was 1,218. Every omnibus and hackney-carriage 
within the Metropolitan District and the City of 
London, and the liberties thereof, has to take out 



H)icftenB' Xon^on 213 

a yearly license, in full force for one year, unless 
revoked or suspended; and all such licenses are 
to be granted by the Commissioners of Police, 
whose officers are constantly inspecting these public 
vehicles. Generally speaking, each omnibus travels 
over the same route, and exactly the same number 
of times, day after day, with the exception of some 
few of the omnibuses which go longer journeys 
than the rest, and run not quite so oiten in winter 
as in summer. Hence the former class of omnibus 
comes to be associated with a particular route. It is 
known to the passengers by its colour, the name of 
its owner, the name given to the omnibus itself, or 
the places to and from which it runs, according to 
circumstances. The greater portion are now the 
property of the London General Omnibus Company. 
The designations given to the omnibuses are gen- 
erally given on the front in large letters. 

At least so it is written in the guide-book. As 
a matter of fact, the stranger will be fortunate if 
he can figure out their destination from the mass 
of hoardings announcing the respective virtues of 
Venus Soap and Nestles' Milk. To the Londoner 
this is probably obvious, in which case the virtues 
of this specific form of advertising might be ex- 
pected to be considerably curtailed. 

One who was curious of inspecting contrasting 



214 Dicftens' Xont)on 

elements might have done worse than tO' take an 
outside " garden seat " on a Stratford and Bow 
omnibus, at Oxford Circus, and riding — for six- 
pence all the way — via Regent Street, Pall Mall, 
Trafalgar Square, Strand, Fleet Street, St. Paul's, 
past the Mansion House and the Bank, Royal Ex- 
change, Cornhill, Leadenhall Street, Aldgate, White- 
chapel Road, Mile End, to Stratford. 

The convenient, if ungraceful, cab had completely 
superseded the old pair-horse hackney-coaches in 
London in general use previous to 1850. Accord- 
ing to the returns of the day, there were 6,793 o^ 
the modern single-horse hackney-coaches in the 
metropolis altogether, of two different kinds, " four- 
wheelers " and " hansoms," which took their name 
from the patentee. The " four-wheelers " are the 
more numerous; they have two seats and two 
doors; they carry four persons, and are entirely 
enclosed. The " hansoms " have seating capacity 
for but two, and, though convenient and handy be- 
yond any other wheeled thing until the coming of 
the automobile, the gondola of London was unde- 
niably dangerous to the occupant, and ugly withal, 
two strongly mitigating features. 

Of the great event of Dickens' day, which took 
place in London, none was greater or more char- 
acteristic of the devotion of the British people to 






INTERIOR OF ST. PAUL'S CATHEDRAL DURING THE DUKE OF 
WELLINGTON'S FUNERAL. 



2)icftens' Xont>on 215 

the memory of a popular hero than the grand mili- 
tary funeral of the Right Honourable Field Mar- 
shal Arthur Wellesley, Duke of Wellington (No- 
vember, 1852), Certainly no military pageant of 
former times — save, possibly, the second funeral 
of Napoleon — was so immeasurably of, and for, 
the people. By this time most of the truly great 
of England's roll of fame had succumbed, died, and 
were buried with more or less ostentation or sincere 
display of emotion, but it remained for Wellington 
— a popular hero of fifty years' standing — to out- 
rival all others in the love of the people for him 
and his works. He died at Walmer Castle on the 
Kent coast. 

His body lay there in state, at Chelsea Hospital 
and in St. Paul's Cathedral, before it was finally 
laid to rest in the marble sarcophagus which is seen 
to-day in the same edifice. With Nelson, nay, more 
than Nelson, he shares the fervid admiration of the 
Briton for a great warrior. 

Disraeli's eulogium in the House of Commons 
appears to have been the one false note of sincerity 
in all the paean that went forth, and even this 
might perhaps have survived an explanation had 
Beaconsfield chosen to make one. Certainly racial 
opposition to this great statesman had a great deal 
to do with the cheap denunciation which was heaped 



2i6 2)icftens' Xon^on 

upon his head because he had made use of the words 
of another eulogist, a Frenchman, upon the death 
of one of his own countrymen; "a second-rate 
French marshal," the press had called him, one 
Marshal de St. Cyr. It was unfortunate that 
such a forceful expression as this was given sec- 
ond-hand : " A great general must not only think, 
but think with the rapidity of lightning, to he 
able to fulfil the highest duty of a minister of 
state, and to descend, if need be, to the humble office 
of a commissary and a clerk; must he able, too, 
to think with equal vigour, depth, and clearness, 
in the cabinet or amidst the noise of bullets. This 
is the loftiest exercise and most complete triumph 
of human faculties." 

All this, and much more, is absolutely authenti- 
cated as having been uttered by M. Thiers twenty 
years before the occasion referred to. It is per- 
haps true that the great Wellington deserved better 
than this second-hand eulogy, and perhaps right 
that there should have been resentment, but further 
comment thereon must be omitted here, save that 
the incident is recorded as one of those events of an 
age which may well be included when treating of 
their contemporary happenings. 

No account of the London of any past era could 
ignore mention of those great civic events, occurring 



Dicftens* Xonbon 217 

on the 9th November in each year, and locally 
known as " Lord Mayor's Day," being the occasion 
on which that functionary enters into his term of 
office. As a pageant, it is to-day somewhat out 
of date, and withal, tawdry, but as a memory of 
much splendour in the past, it is supposedly con- 
tinued as one of those institutions which the Briton 
is wont to expect through tradition and custom. 
Perhaps the following glowing account of one of 
these gorgeous ceremonies, when the water pageant 
was still in vogue, written by an unknown journal- 
ist, or " pressman," as he is rather enigmatically 
called in London, in 1843, ^^^^ serve to best describe 
the annually recurring event of pride and glory to 
your real Cockney. 

LORD MAYOR'S DAY 

" • Oh ! such a day 

So renown'd and victorious, 
Sure such a day was never seen — 
City so gay, 

And Cits so uproarious, 
As tho' such sight had never been ! 

" ' All hail ! November — 

Though no hail to-day 

(At least that we remember), 

Hath pav'd the way 
His Civic Majesty hath will'd to go, 
And swore he'd go it 'spite hail, rain, or snow ! 



2i8 2)xcftens' Xon^on 

He takes to water for an airing. 
Before perhaps he dines with Baring 
Or sees the waiter, so alert, 

Place the fav'rite Patties-on 
The table near him — knave expert 

To make the most of " what is on ! " 
By this we mean, what's most in season. 
To say no more we have a reason ! ' 

— Anon. 

" Since the first mayoralty procession, in the year 
12 1 5, probably there have been few finer pageants 
than that of Thursday last, when the November sun 
even gilded with his beams the somewhat tarnished 
splendour of the City state. 

" According to annual custom, the new lord mayor 
(Alderman Magnay) was sworn into. his office of 
Chief Magistrate of the City of London, at the 
Guildhall. 

" Being a member of the Stationers' Company, the 
master, wardens, and court of assistants of that 
company proceeded to Mansion House, where they 
were met by the new lord mayor and his sheriffs. 
After a sumptuous dejeuner a la fourchette, the 
whole of the civic dignitaries proceeded to the 
Guildhall. 

" The next day the various officials assembled at 
the Guildhall, and, the procession being formed, pro- 
ceeded thence through King Street, Cateaton Street, 



Dicfeens' Xon&on 219 

Moorgate Street, London Wall, Broad Street, 
Threadneedle Street, Mansion House Street, Poul- 
try, Cheapside, and Queen Street, to Southwark 
Bridge, where his lordship embarked at the Float- 
ing Pier for Westminster. This somewhat unusual 
arrangement arose from the new lord mayor being 
the alderman of Vintry Ward, wherein the bridge 
is situated, and his lordship being desirous that his 
constituents should witness the progress of the civic 
procession. The embarkation was a picturesque 
affair; the lord mayor's state barge, the watermen 
in their characteristic costume, and the lord mayor 
and his party were, in civic phrase, * taking water,' 
" The novelty of the point of embarkation drew 
clustering crowds upon the bridge and the adjoin- 
ing river banks. There were the usual waterside 
rejoicings, as the firing of guns, streaming flags, 
and hearty cheers ; and the water procession had all 
the festal gaiety with which we have been wont to 
associate it in the past. The scene was very ani- 
mating, the river being thickly covered with boats 
of various descriptions, as well as with no less than 
seven state barges, filled inside and outside with the 
livery belonging to the City Companies, and all 
anxiously awaiting the word of command to proceed 
onward to Westminster. The sun shone resplen- 
dently upon the flags and banners studding the tops 



220 2)icl?ens' Xon^on 

of the barges, and the wharfs near the spot all ex- 
hibited similar emblems. As the new lord mayor 
entered the City barge, and was recognized, the 
air was rent with the most deafening shouts of ap- 
plause, which his lordship gracefully acknowledged 
by repeatedly bowing to the assembled thousands. 
The aquatic procession now left the pier, the City 
barge being accompanied by the Stationers, Fish- 
mongers, Goldsmiths, Wax Chandlers, and Iron- 
mongers' Companies, in their respective state barges. 

" On arrival at Westminster, the lord mayor and 
civic authorities having landed, they walked in pro- 
cession to the Court of Exchequer, where a large 
number of ladies and gentlemen awaited their ar- 
rival. Having been introduced to the chief baron 
by the recorder, who briefly stated the qualifica- 
tions of Alderman Magnay for his important office 
of chief magistrate, and the learned baron having 
eloquently replied, the new lord mayor invited his 
lordship to the inauguration dinner, and afterward 
proceeded to the other courts, inviting the judge of 
each court to the same. 

" His lordship and the various officials then reem- 
barked in the state barge for Blackfriars Bridge, 
where the procession was re-formed and joined by 
the ambassadors, her Majesty's ministers, the no- 
bility, judges, members of Parliament, and various 




LORD mayor's procession, ASCENDING LUDGATE HILL. 



Dicftens* XonC)on 221 

other persons of distinction. The whole then moved 
through Ludgate Hill, St. Paul's Churchyard, 
Cheapside, and down King Street to the Guildhall, 
where the inaugural entertainment was to be given. 

" The plate given herein shows the return of the 
procession, just as the gorgeous state coach is about 
to wend its way up Ludgate Hill. The coach is, 
doubtless, the most imposing feature of the modern 
show, and has thus played its part for nearly four- 
score years and ten. It is a piece of cumbrous 
magnificence, better assorting with the leisurely 
progress of other days than the notions of these 
progressive times. Yet it is a sight which may have 
inspired many a City apprentice, and spurred him 
onward to become an ' honourable of the land ; ' 
it is, moreover, the very type of this ' red-letter 
day ' in the City ; and, costly as it is, with its 
disappearance, even portly aldermen will vanish 
into thin air. 

" The foremost group shows the lord mayor 
seated in the coach, attended by his chaplain, and 
the sword and mace-bearers, the former carrying 
— which has to be held outside the coach, be it ob- 
served ; its stature is too great for it to find shelter 
inside — the pearl sword presented to the City by 
Queen Elizabeth, upon opening the Royal Ex- 
change; the latter supporting the great gold mace 



222 Dicftens' Xont)on 

given by Charles I. The coach is attended by the 
lord mayor's beadles in their gold-laced cloaks, and 
carrying small maces. 

" Onward are seen the other leading features of 
the procession ; the crowd is truly dense, for at this 
point is the great crush of the day ; ' the Hill ' 
is thronged, and the City police require all their 
good temper to * keep the line.' The scene is excit- 
ing, and the good-humoured crowd presents many 
grotesque points for those who delight in studies 
of character. Altogether, the scene is as joyous, 
if rather gaudy, picture of a civic holiday as the 
times could present." 

Perhaps the greatest topographical change in the 
London of Dickens' day was the opening, on No- 
vember 6, 1869, of the Holborn Viaduct. This 
improvement was nothing short of the actual de- 
molition and reconstruction of a whole district, 
formerly either squalid, over-blocked, and dilapi- 
dated in some parts, or oversteep and dangerous 
to traffic in others. But a short time before that 
same Holborn Valley was one of the most heart- 
breaking impediments to horse traffic in London, 
with a gradient on one side of one in eighteen, 
while opposite it was one in twenty. Thus every- 
thing on wheels, and every foot-passenger entering 
the City by the Holborn route, had to descend 



H)icftcns' Xonbon 223 

twenty-six feet to the Valley of the Fleet, and then 
ascend a like number to Newg^ate. The new Via- 
duct levelled all this, and made the journey far 
easier than that by Ludgate Hill. 

The greatest architectural work which took shape 
in London during Dickens' day was the construc- 
tion of the new Houses of Parliament. 

Associated intimately with Dickens' first steps 
to success were the old buildings, which were burned 
in 1834. Here he received his first regular jour- 
nalistic employment, as reporter for the True Sun, 
an event which soon led to the acceptance of his 
writings elsewhere. Some discussion has recently 
been rife in London concerning the name of the 
paper with which Dickens had his first Parliamen- 
tary employment. 

According to Forster, Dickens was in his twenty- 
third year when he became a reporter on the Morn- 
ing Chronicle. At this time the Chronicle was 
edited by John Black, who had conducted it ever 
since Perry's death, and the office of the paper from 
June, 1834, until it died in 1862, was 332 Strand, 
opposite Somerset House, a building pulled down 
under the Strand improvement scheme. It had then ' 
been for nearly forty years — ever since the Chron- 
icle vacated it, in fact — the office of another news- 
paper, the Weekly Times and Echo. It may be 



224 Bicftens' Xonbon 

worth while to add that Dickens first entered " The 
Gallery " at the age of nineteen, as reporter for the 
True Sun, and that he afterward reported during 
two sessions for the Mirror of Parliament before 
he joined the staff of the Morning Chronicle. 

The new Houses of Parliament form one of the 
grandest administrative piles of any city in the 
world, built though, it is feared, of a stone too soon 
likely to decay, and with a minuteness O'f Gothic 
ornament which is perhaps somewhat out of keep- 
ing with a structure otherwise so massive. 

The House of Peers is 97 feet long, 45 wide, and 
45 high. It is so profusely painted and gilt, and the 
windows are so darkened by deep-tinted stained 
glass, that it is with difficulty that the details can 
be observed. At the southern end is the gorgeously 
gilt and canopied throne; near the centre is the 
woolsack, on which the lord chancellor sits; at the 
end and sides are galleries for peeresses, reporters, 
and strangers ; and on the floor of the house are the 
cushioned benches for the peers. Two frescoes by 
David Maclise — " The Spirit of Justice " and 
" The Spirit of Chivalry " — are over the strangers' 
gallery, as well as a half-dozen others by famous 
hands elsewhere. In niches between the windows 
and at the ends are eighteen statues of barons who 
signed Magna Charta. The House of Commons, 



Dicftens' Xont)on 



225 









s 




226 5)tcftcns' Xon&on 

62 feet long, 45 broad, and 45 high, is much less 
elaborate than the House of Peers. The Speaker's 
chair is at the north end, and there are galleries 
along the sides and ends. In a gallery behind the 
Speaker, the reporters for the newspapers sit. Over 
which is the ladies' gallery, where the view is ungal- 
lantly obstructed by a grating. The present ceiling 
is many feet below the original one, the room hav- 
ing been to this extent spoiled because the former 
proportions were bad for hearing. 

On the side nearest to Westminster are St. 
Stephen's Porch, St. Stephen's Corridor, the Chan- 
cellor's Corridor, the Victoria Tower, the Royal 
Staircase, and numerous courts and corridors. At 
the south end, nearest Millbank, are the Guard 
Room, the Queen's Robing-Room, the Royal Gal- 
lery, the Royal Court, and the Prince's Chamber. 
The river front is mostly occupied by libraries and 
committee-rooms. The northern or Bridge Street 
end displays the Clock Tower and the Speaker's 
Residence. In the interior of the structure are vast 
numbers of lobbies, corridors, halls, and courts. 
The Victoria Tower, at the southwest angle of the 
entire structure, is a wonderfully fine and massive 
tower ; it is 75 feet square and 340 feet high. The 
clock tower, at the north end, is 40 feet square and 
320 feet high, profusely gilt near the top. After 



2)icF?cns' Xon^on 227 

two attempts made to supply this tower with a bell 
of fourteen tons weight, and after both failed, one 
of the so-called " Big Bens," the weight of which 
is about eight tons (the official name being " St. 
Stephen "), now tells the hour in deep tones. There 
are, likewise, eight smaller bells to chime the quar- 
ters. The clock is by far the largest and finest in 
England. There are four dials on the four faces 
of the tower, each 22^ feet in diameter; the hour 
figures are 2 feet high and 6 feet apart ; the minute 
marks are 14 inches apart ; the hands weigh more 
than 2 cwt. the pair; the minute hand is 16 feet 
long, and the hour hand 9 feet; the pendulum is 
15 feet long and weighs 680 lbs. The central tower 
rises to a height of 300 feet. 

Its rooms and staircases are almost inconceivably 
numerous. The river front is nine hundred feet in 
length, with an elaborately decorated fac^ade with 
carven statues and emblems. By i860 the cost had 
exceeded by a considerable sum £2,000,000. 

The growth of the British Museum and its ever 
increasing store of knowledge is treated elsewhere, 
but it is worth recording here, as one of the sig- 
nificant events of contemporary times, the open- 
ing of the present structure with its remarkable 
domed reading-room. 

This great national establishment contains a vast 



228 Dicftcns* Xonbon 

and constantly increasing collection of books, maps, 
drawings, prints, sculptures, antiquities, and natural 
curiosities. It occupies a most extensive suite of 
buildings in Great Russell Street, Bloomsbury, com- 
menced in 1823, and only finished during the last 
quarter of the nineteenth century. It has cost a 
sum little less than £1,000,000. Sir Richard Smirke 
was the architect. The principal, or south front, 
370 feet long, presents a range of forty-four col- 
umns, with a majestic central portico, with a sculp- 
tured pediment. Since its commencement, in 1755, 
the collection has been prodigiously increased by 
gifts, bequests, and purchases ; and now it is, per- 
haps, the largest of the kind in the world. The 
library contains more than eight hundred thousand 
volumes, and is increasing enormously in extent 
every year. The magnificent reading-room is open 
only to persons who proceed thither for study, or 
for consulting authorities. It was opened in 1857, 
and built at a cost of £150,000, and is one of the 
finest and most novel apartments in the world; it 
is circular, 140 feet in diameter, and open to a 
dome-roof 106 feet high, supported entirely without 
pillars. This beautiful room, and the fire-proof gal- 
leries for books which surround it, were planned by 
Mr. Panizzi, an Italian and a former keeper of 
the printed books. 



2)icftcns' Xon&on 229 

In connection with the Hbrary proper is an equally 
vast collection of antiquities, etc., of which all guide- 
books and those publications issued by the Museum 
authorities tell. 

The building was complete by 1865, ^^^ ^^^ the 
last forty years has stood proudly in its command- 
ing situation, the admiration of all who have come 
in contact therewith. 

What Hampstead Heath is to the coster, the 
Crystal Palace is to the middle-class Londoner, who 
repairs there, or did in Dickens' time, on every 
possible auspicious occasion. This structure itself, 
though it can hardly be called beautiful by the most 
charitably disposed, is in many respects one of the 
most remarkable in the world, and owes its exist- 
ence to the Great Exhibition of 185 1 in Hyde Park. 
The materials of that building, being sold to a new 
company toward the close of that year, were trans- 
ferred to an elevated spot near Sydenham, seven 
miles from town, to the south. The intention was 
to found a palace and park for the exhibition of art 
and science on a paying basis. The original esti- 
mate was £500,000, but the expenditure was nearly 
£1,500,000, too great to assure a probable profitable 
return. 

The palace and grounds were opened in 1854, the 
towers and fountains some time after. 



230 2>lcRcns' XonDon 

The building itself is i,6oo feet long and 380 
wide, and at the transept is nearly 200 feet in height. 
Exhibition-rooms, reading-rooms, restaurants, and 
a vast orchestral auditorium were included under 
one roof, with bazaars and small shops and stalls 
innumerable. 

The parks and garden were laid out to cover some 
two hundred acres, with terraces and fountains ga- 
lore, the idea being to produce somewhat the effect 
as at Versailles, with Les Grande and Petite Eaux, 
on " grand days " the fountains consuming over 
6,000,000 gallons. Cricket, football, and sports of 
various kinds used to draw vast throngs to " the 
Palace," and the firework displays at night were, 
and are to-day, justly celebrated. In short, this 
" Cockney Arcadia," if rather a tawdry attraction, 
has had the benefit of much honest admiration of 
the Londoner, who perforce could not get farther 
afield for his holiday, and its like can hardly be 
said to exist elsewhere in Europe or America. 
Hence it must perforce rank in a way as something 
unique in present-day outdoor entertainment, as 
near as is left to us of those of the days of Ranelegh 
and Vauxhall. Beloved O'f the clerk and shopkeeper, 
and altogether an attraction which few of their class 
appear to be able to resist for long at a time. 

London is no more the dread of the visitor who 



Dicftens* Xonbon 231 

feared the ways that are dark and the tricks that 
are vain. 

London tricks are old as London's history, and 
from the days of Chaucer the countryman's fear of 
London's vastness and the cheats practised by her 
nimble-vvitted rogues have passed into hterature. 
In the year 1450 John Lydgate sang the sorrows of 
a simple Kentish wight, who found that, go where 
he would in London, he could not speed without 
money : 

" To London once, my stepps I bent, 
Where trouth in no wyse shoulf be faynt ; 
To Westmynster ward I forthwith went, 
To a man of law to make complaynt. 
I sayd, ' for Mary's love, that holy saynt ! 
Pity the poor that would proceede ; ' 
But for lack of mony I cold not spede." 

After going among the lawyers of King's Bench, 
the Flemings of Westminster Hall with their hats 
and spectacles, the cloth men and drapers of Cheap- 
side, and the butchers of Eastcheap, poor Lackpenny 
found that nowhere, without money, could he be 
sped in London. His final adventure and reflections 
were these: 

" Then hyed I me to Belynsgate ; 
And one cryed ' hoo, go we hence ! * 
I prayd a barge man for God's sake, 
That he wold spare me my expence. 



232 Bicftens* Xont>on 

' Thou scapst not here,' quod he, ' under 2 pence, 
I lyst not yet bestow my almes dede ; ' 
Thus lacking mony I could not spede. 

" Then I convayed me into Kent; 
For of the law wold I meddle no more 
Because no man to me tooke entent, 
I dyght me to do as I dyd before. 
Now Jesus that in Bethlem was bore, 
Save London, and send trew lawyers there mede, 
For who so wants mony with them shall not spede" 

Again one might quote that old Roxburghe ballad, 
" The Great Boobee," in which a country yokel is 
made to tell how he wa» made to look foolish when 
he resolved to plough no more, but to see the fash- 
ions of London : 

" Now as I went along the street, 

I carried my hat in my hand, 
And to every one that I did meet 

I bravely bent my band. 
Some did laugh, some did scoff, 

And some did mock at me, 
And some did say I was a woodcock, 

And a great Boobee. 

" Then I did walk in haste to Paul's, 

The steeple for to view. 
Because I heard some people say 

It should be builded new. 
When I got up unto the top, 

The city for to see. 
It was so high, it made me cry, 

Like a great Boobee. 



H)icftens' XonDon 233 



" Next day I thorugh Pye-corner past, 

The roast meat on the stall 
Invited me to take a taste ; 

My money was but small : 
The meat I pickt, the cook me kickt, 

As I may tell to thee, 
He beat me sore, and made me rore. 

Like a great Boobee." 

It should be remembered, however, that the great 
classic of London every-day life, Gay's " Trivia," 
with its warnings against every danger of the street, 
from chairmen's poles to thimblerigging, from the 
ingenious thefts of periwigs to the nuisances caused 
by dustmen and small coalmen, from the reckless 
horseplay of the Mohawks to the bewilderment 
which may overtake the stranger confronted by the 
problem of Seven Dials, was written for the warn- 
ing of Londoners themselves. Those were the days 
when diamond cut diamond. 

In the last fifty years the roving swindler has 
become rare in the streets. London now frightens 
the countryman more by its size than anything else. 
And yet the bigger London grows the more it must 
lose even this power to intimidate. Its greatest dis- 
tances, its vast suburban wildernesses, are seen by 
him only through a railway carriage window. He 
is shot into the centre, and in the centre he remains, 



234 Bichens' Xon&on 

where help and convenience are increased every year. 
It was different in the old days, when the country- 
man rolled into London by coach, and was robbed 
on Hounslow Heath before he had seen more than 
the light of London in the sky. No one nowadays 
is in danger of being driven mad by the mere spec- 
tacle of London opening out before him, yet this 
was the fate of a West Country traveller who saw 
London for the first time from a coach early in the 
nineteenth century. Cyrus Redding tells the story 
in his entertaining " Fifty Years' Recollections." 
All went well as far as Brentford. Seeing the lamps 
of that outlying village, the countryman imagined 
that he was at his journey's end, but as mile after 
mile of illumination went on, he asked, in alarm, 
" Are we not yet in London, and so many miles of 
lamps ? " At last, at Hyde Park Corner, he was 
told that this was London ; but still on went the 
lamps, on and on the streets, until the poor stranger 
subsided into a coma of astonishment. When at 
last they entered Lad Lane, the great Cheapside 
coaching centre, a travelling companion bade the 
West Countryman remain in the coffee-room while 
he made inquiries. On returning, he found no trace 
of him, nor heard any more of him for six weeks. 
He then learned that he was in custody at Sher- 
borne, in Dorsetshire, as a lunatic. He was taken 



H)icftens' Xon^on 235 

home, and after a brief return of his reason he died. 
He was able to explain that he had become more 
and more bewildered by the lights and by the never- 
ending streets, from which he thought he should 
never be able to escape. Somehow, he walked 
blindly westward, and at last emerged into the 
country, only to lose his memory and his wits. 

Things are different to-day, and yet many peo- 
ple from the remoter parts of England are bewil- 
dered, distressed, and crazed by a visit to London. 
One meets them drifting wearily and anxiously 
toward King's Cross or St. Pancras at the end of 
their stay. They will be happy again when they 
see the utensils glitter on their old kitchen wall; 
when they have peeped into their best room and 
found the shade of stuffed squirrels resting undis- 
turbed on the family Bible; and when the steam 
rises above their big blue teacups more proudly than 
ever the dome of St. Paul's soars above this howling 
Babylon, then they will acquiesce in all that is said 
in praise of the Abbey, the Bank of England, and 
Madam Tussaud's. 



THE UNDER WORLD 

/t^ for the people of Dickens and the people 
y1 he knew so well, they were mostly of the 
lower middle classes, though he himself 
had, by the time his career w^as well defined, been 
able to surround himself with the society of the 
leading literary lights of his time. 

Surely, though, the Cockney pur sang never had 
so true a delineator as he who produced those pen- 
pictures ranging all the way from the vulgarities 
of a Sykes to the fastidiousness of a Skimpole. It 
is a question, wide open in the minds of many, as 
to whether society of any rank is improving or not ; 
surely the world is quite as base as it ever was, 
and as worthily circumspect too. But while the 
improvement of the aristocracy in general, since 
mediaeval times, in learning and accomplishments, 
was having its untold effect on the middle classes, 
it was long before the immense body of workers, or 
perhaps one should say skilled labourers, as the 

economists call them, partook in any degree of the 

236 



Bicftens' Xon^on 237 

general amendment. Certainly we have a right to 
assume, even with a twentieth-century standpoint 
to judge from, that there was a constantly increas- 
ing dissemination of knowledge, if not of culture, 
and that sooner or later it might be expected to have 
its desired, if unconscious, effect on the lower classes. 
That discerning, if not discreet, American, Na- 
thaniel Parker Willis, was inclined to think not, and 
compared the English labourer to a tired donkey 
with no interest in things about him, and with scarce 
surplus energy enough to draw one leg after the 
other. He may have been wrong, but the fact is 
that there is a very large proportion of Dickens' 
characters made up of a shiftless, worthless, and 
even criminal class, as we all recognize, and these 
none the less than the other more worthy characters 
are nowhere to be found as a thoroughly indigenous 
type but in London itself. 

There was an unmistakable class in Dickens' 
time, and there is to-day, whose only recourse, in 
their moments of ease, is to the public house, — 
great, strong, burly men, with " a good pair of 
hands," but no brain, or at least no development 
of it, and it is to this class that your successful 
middle- Victorian novelist turned when he wished 
to suggest something unknown in polite society. 
This is the individual who cares little for public 



238 Bichette' Xon&on 

improvements, ornamental parks. Omnibuses or 
trams, steamboats or flying-machines, it's all the 
same to him. He cares not for libraries, reading- 
rooms, or literature, cheap or otherwise, nothing, 
in fact, which will elevate or inspire self-respect; 
nothing but soul-destroying debauchery and vice, 
living and dying the life of the beast, and as careless 
of the future. This is a type, mark you, gentle 
reader, which is not overdrawn, as the writer has 
reason to know ; it existed in London in the days of 
Dickens, and it exists to-day, with the qualification 
that many who ought, perforce of their instincts, 
to be classed therewith do just enough work of an 
incompetent kind to keep them well out from under 
the shadow of the law ; these are the " Sykeses " 
of a former day, not the " Fagins," who are pos- 
sessed of a certain amount of natural wit, if it be 
of a perverted kind. 

An event which occurred in 1828, almost unpar- 
alleled in the annals of criminal atrocity, is signifi- 
cantly interesting with regard to Dickens' absorp- 
tion of local and timely accessory, mostly of fact 
as against purely imaginative interpolation merely: 

A man named Burke (an Irishman) and a woman 
named Helen M'Dougal, coalesced with one Hare 
in Edinburgh to murder persons by wholesale, and 
dispose of their bodies to the teachers of anatomy. 



K 



rx 



Bfcftens' Xonbon 239 



According to the confession of the principal actor, 
sixteen persons, some in their sleep, others after 
intoxication, and several in a state of infirmity from 
disease, were suffocated. One of the men generally 
threw himself on the victim tO' hold him down, while 
the other " burked " him by forcibly pressing the 
nostrils and mouth, or the throat, with his hands. 
Hare being admitted as king's evidence, Burke and 
his other partner in guilt were arraigned on three 
counts. Helen M'Dougal was acquitted and Burke 
was executed. 

This crime gave a new word to our language. 
To " burke " is given in our dictionaries as " to 
murder by suffocation so as to produce few signs 
of violence upon the victim." Or to bring it directly 
home to Dickens, the following quotation will serve : 

" ' You don't mean to say he was " burked," 
Sam ? ' said Mr. Pickwick." 

With no class o^f society did Dickens deal more 
successfully than with the sordidness of crime. He 
must have been an observer of the most acute per- 
ceptions, and while in many cases it was only minor 
crimes of which he dealt, the vagaries of his assas- 
sins are unequalled in fiction. He was generally sat- 
isfied with ordinary methods, as with the case of 
Lawyer Tulkinghorn's murder in Lincoln's Inn 
Fields, but even in this scene he does throw into 



240 2)icftens* !iLon^on 

crime something more than the ordinary methods 
of the EngHsh novehst. He had the power, one 
might almost say the Shakespearian power, of not 
only describing a crime, but also of making you 
feel the sensation of crime in the air. First and 
foremost one must place the murder of Montague 
Tigg. 

The grinning Carker of " Dombey and Son " is 
ground to death under the wheels of a locomotive 
at a French railway station ; Quilp, of " The Old 
Curiosity Shop," is dramatically drowned; Bill 
Sykes' neck is broken by the rope meant for his 
escape; Bradley Headstone and his enemy go to- 
gether to the bottom of the canal; while the mys- 
terious Krook, of " Bleak House," is disposed of by 
spontaneous combustion. 

Certainly such a gallery of horrors could not be 
invented purely out of an imaginative mind, and 
must admittedly have been the product of intimate 
first-hand knowledge of criminals and their ways. 

Doubtless there was a tendency to improve moral 
conditions as things went on. Britain is not the 
dying nation which the calamity howlers would 
have us infer. 

In the year 1800, there were — notwithstanding 
the comparative sparseness of population — eigh- 
teen prisons in London alone, whereas in 1850, 



Dfcftens' Xon^on 241 

when Dickens was in his prime and when population 
had enormously increased, that number had been 
reduced one-third. 

In the early days the jailor in many prisons re- 
ceived no salary, but made his livelihood from the 
fees he could extort from the prisoners and their 
friends ; and in some cases he paid for the privilege 
of holding office. Not only had a prisoner to pay 
for his food and for the straw on which he slept, 
but, if he failed to pay, he would be detained until 
he did so. 

In Cold Bath Fields prison, men, women, and 
children were indiscriminately herded together, 
without employment or wholesome control; while 
smoking, gaming, singing, and every species of 
brutalizing conversation obtained. 

At the Fleet Prison there was a grate or iron- 
barred window facing Farringdon Street, and above 
it was inscribed, " Pray remember the poor prison- 
ers having no allowance," while a small box was 
placed on the window-sill to receive the charity of 
the passers-by, and a man ran to and fro, begging 
coins " for the poor prisoners in the Fleet." 

At Newgate, the women usually numbered from 
a hundred to one hundred and thirty, and each had 
only eighteen inches breadth of sleeping-room, and 



242 5)icftens' Xonbon 

all were " packed like slaves in the hold of a slave- 
ship." 

And Marshalsea, which Dickens incorporated 
into " David Copperfield " and " Little Dorrit," was 
quite as sordid, to what extent probably none knew 
so well as Dickens, pere et His, for here it was that 
the father fretfully served out his sentence for debt. 

Of all the prisons of that day it may be stated 
that they were hotbeds of immorality, where chil- 
dren herded with hoary criminals; where no sani- 
tary laws were recognized ; where vermin swarmed 
and disease held forth, and where robbery, tyranny, 
and cruelty, if not actually permitted, was at least 
winked at or ig-nored. 

In 1829 Sir Robert Peel brought into force his 
new police establishment, an event which had not 
a little to do with the betterment of social life of 
the day. 

" The whole metropolitan district was formed 
into five local divisions, each division into eight 
sections, and each section into eight beats, the limits 
of all being clearly defined and distinguished by 
letters and numbers ; the force itself was divided 
into companies, each company having one superin- 
tendent, four inspectors, sixteen sergeants, and one 
hundred and forty-four police constables, being also 
sub-divided into sixteen parts, each consisting of a 



Dicftens' Xon&on 243 

sergeant and nine men." Incalculable as the boon 
was in the repression of crime, the Corporation of 
the City of London could not be persuaded, until 
several years afterward, to follow such an example, 
and give up their vested interests in the old system 
of watchmen. The police system, as remodelled 
by Sir Robert Peel in 1829, was, of course, the 
foundation of the present admirable body oi con- 
stabulary, of which the London " Bobby " must be 
admitted by all as ranking at the very head of his 
contemporaries throughout the civilized world. Cer- 
tainly no more affable and painstaking servants of 
the public are anywhere to be found ; they are truly 
the " refuge of the inquiring stranger and timid 
women." 

The London policeman, then, is essentially a prod- 
uct of our own times; a vast advance over the 
peripatetic watchman of a former day, and quite 
unlike his brother on the Continent, who has not 
only to keep the peace, but act as a political spy 
as well. Perhaps it is for this reason that the Lon- 
don policeman is able to exhibit such devotion and 
affability in the conduct of his duties. Surely no 
writer or observer has ever had the temerity to 
assail the efficiency of the London " Peeler " or 
" Bobby," as he now exists. 

No consideration or estimate of middle-class Lon- 



244 H)icftens' Xont)on 

don would be complete without mention of that very 
important factor in its commissariat — beer, or its 
various species, mild or bitter, pale or stale. Your 
true Cockney East-Ender, however, likes his 'arf 
and 'arf, and further admonishes the cheery bar- 
maid to " draw it mild." Brewers, it would seem, 
like their horses and draymen, are of a substantial 
race; many of the leading brewers of the middle 
nineteenth-century times, indeed, of our own day, 
are those who brewed in the reigns of the Georges. 

By those who know, genuine London ale (pre- 
sumably the " Genuine Stunning ale " of the " little 
public house in Westminster," mentioned in " Cop- 
perfield ") alone is supposed to rival the ideal 
" berry-brown " and " nut-brown " ale of the old 
songs, or at least what passed for it in those days. 

The increase of brewers has kept pace with Lon- 
don's increase in other respects. Twenty-six brew- 
houses in the age of Elizabeth became fifty-five 
in the middle of the eighteenth century, and one 
hundred and forty-eight in 184 1 ; and in quantity 
from 284,145 barrels in 1782 to 2,119,447 in 1836. 
To-day, in the absence of any statistics to hand, the 
sum total must be something beyond the grasp of 
any but the statistician. 

Without attempting to discuss the merits or de- 
merits of temperance in general, or beer in partial- 



H)icftenB' Xon&on 245 

lar, it can be safely said that the brewer's dray is 
a prominent and picturesque feature of London 
streets, without which certain names, with which 
even the stranger soon becomes familiar, would 
be meaningless ; though they are, as it were, on 
everybody's tongue and on many a sign-board in 
nearly every thoroughfare. As a historian, who 
would have made an unexceptionable literary critic, 
has said : Beer overflows in almost every volume 
of Fielding and Smollett. Goldsmith was not averse 
to the " parson's black champagne; " Hogarth im- 
mortalized its domestic use, and Gilray its political 
history ; and the " pot of porter " and " mug of bit- 
ter " will go down in the annals of the literature, art, 
and history of London, and indeed all Britain, along 
with the more aristocratic port and champagne. 



LONDON TOPOGRAPHY 

From Park Land to Wapping, by day and by night, 

I've many a year been a reamer, 
And find that no Lawyer can London indite, 

Each street, every Lane's a misnomer. 
I find Broad Street, St. Giles, a poor narrow nook. 

Battle Bridge is unconscious of slaughter, 
Duke's Place can not muster the ghost of a Duke, 

And Brook Street is wanting in water. 

James Smoth, Comic Miscellanies. 

/T is not easy to delimit the territorial con- 
fines of a great and growing city like 
London. The most that the most sanguine 
writer could hope to do would be to devote 
himself to recounting the facts and features, with 
more or less completeness, of an era, or an epoch, 
if the word be thought to confine the period of time 
more definitely. 

There is no London of to-day ; like " unborn to- 
morrow " and " dead yesterday," it does not exist. 
Some remains there may be of a former condition, 
and signs there assuredly are of still greater things 
to come, but the very face of the earth in the great 
world of London is constantly changing and being 

246 




Bitliiigsgate and the Custom 
House. 



The Bank, Royal Exchange, 
and Alattsion House. 







General Post - Office. 



-.AH 






King William Street and 
Gracechurch Street. 




St. Paul's, Cheapside, and Fleet Street at Temple Bar. 

Paternoster Row. 



" The City " — London. 



Bicfiens' XonOon 247 

improved or disimproved, accordingly as its makers 
have acted wisely or not. 

The London of Dickens' time — the middle Vic- 
torian period — was undergoing, in some degree, 
at least, the rapid changes which were making them- 
selves felt throughout the civilized world. New 
streets were being put through, old landmarks were 
being removed, and new and greater ones rising in 
their stead ; roadways were being levelled, and hills 
were disappearing where they were previously 
known. How curious it is that this one topograph- 
ical detail effects so great a change in the aspect 
of the buildings which border upon the streets. 
Take for instance the Strand as it exists to-day. 
Dickens might have to think twice before he would 
know which way to turn to reach the Good Words 
offices. This former narrow thoroughfare has been 
straightened, widened, and graded until about the 
only recognizable feature of a quarter of a century 
ago is the sky-line. Again, St. Martin's-in-the- 
Fields, a noble and imposing church, is manifestly 
made insignificant by the cutting down of the grade, 
and even removing the broad and gentle rising flight 
of steps which once graced its faqade. Generally 
speaking, the reverse is the case, the level of the 
roadway being immeasurably raised, so that one 
actually steps down into a building which formerly 



248 Blcftens* XouDon 

was elevated a few steps. All this and much more 
is a condition which has worked a wondrous change 
in the topography of London, and doubtless many 
another great city. 

As for grandeur and splendour, that can hardly 
be claimed for any city which does not make use 
of the natural features to heighten the effect of the 
embellishments which the hand of man has added to 
what nature has already given. London possesses 
these features to a remarkable degree, and she 
should make the best of them, even if to go so far 
as to form one of those twentieth-century innova- 
tions, known as an " Art Commission," which she 
lacks. Such an institution might cause an occa- 
sional " deadlock," but it would save a vast deal 
of disfigurement ; for London, be it said, has no 
streets to rank among those of the world which are 
truly great, such as High Street at Oxford, and 
Princess Street in Edinburgh, to confine the com- 
parison to Great Britain. 

The author of this book has never had the least 
thought of projecting " a new work on London," 
as the industrious author or compiler of Knight's 
" Old and New London " put it in 1843, when he 
undertook to produce a monumental work which 
he declared should be neither a " survey nor a his- 
tory." The fact is, however, that not even the most 



9 5)ickens* XonDon 249 

sanguine of those writers who may hope to say a 
new word about any subject so vast as that com- 
prehended by the single word, London, could even 
in a small measure feel sure that he has actually 
discovered any new or hitherto unknown fact. In 
short, one may say that this would be impossible. 

London's written history is very extensive and 
complete, and it is reasonable to suppose that most 
everything of moment has at one time or another 
been written down, but there are constantly varying 
conditions and aspects which do present an occa- 
sional new view of things, even if it be taken from 
an old standpoint; hence even within the limits 
of which this section treats it is possible to give 
something of an impression which once and again 
may strike even a supercritical reader as being 
timely and pertinent, at least to the purport of the 
volume. 

The latter-day City and County of London, in- 
cluding the metropolitan and suburban area, lit- 
erally " Greater London," has within the last few 
years grown to huge proportions. From being a 
city hemmed within a wall, London has expanded 
in all directions, gradually forming a connection 
with various clusters of dwellings in the neighbour- 
hood. It has, in fact, absorbed towns and villages 
to a considerable distance around : the chief of these 



25° 



Bicftens' %ont)on 



"^nm,, *\ 







^ r 



H)icftcns' Xon^on 251 

once detached seats of population being the city 
of Westminster. By means of its bridges, it has 
also absorbed Southwark, Bermondsey, Lambeth, 
and Vauxhall, besides many hamlets and villages 
beyond. 

Even in Dickens' day each centre of urban life, 
whether it be Chelsea, Whitechapel, or the Borough, 

— that ill-defined centre south of London Bridge, 

— was closely identified with local conditions which 
were no part of the life of any other section. Aside 
from the varying conditions of social life, or whether 
the section was purely residential, or whether it was 
a manufacturing community, there were other con- 
ditions as markedly different. Theatres, shops, and 
even churches varied as to their method of conduct, 
and, in some measure, of their functions as well. 
It was but natural that the demand of the Ratcliffe 
Highway for the succulent " kipper " should con- 
duce to a vastly different method of purveying the 
edible necessities of life from that of the West End 
poulterer who sold only Surrey fowl, or, curiously 
enough, as he really does, Scotch salmon. So, too, 
with the theatres and music-halls ; the lower river- 
side population demand, if not necessarily a short 
shrift, a cheap fare, and so he gets his two and 
three performances a night at a price ranging from 



I 



252 2)ichcnB' XonOon 

three pence to two shillings for what in the west 
brings from one to ten shillings. 

To vary the simile still farther, but without going 
into the intricacies of dogma, the church has of 
necessity to appeal to its constituency in the slums 
in a vastly different method of procedure from what 
would be considered dignified or even devout else- 
where; and it is a question if the former is not 
more efficacious than the latter. And so these vari- 
ous centres, as they may be best described, are each 
of themselves local communities welded, let us hope, 
into as near as may be a perfect whole, with a cer- 
tain leeway of self-government and privilege to deal 
with local conditions. 

In 1850, taken as best representative of Dickens' 
time, London was divided into twenty-six wards 
(and several liberties). The "Out Parishes" of 
the " City," the City of Westminster, and the five 
" Parliamentary Boroughs " of Marylebone, Lam- 
beth, Southwark, Finsbury, and Tower hamlets, and 
a region of debatable land lying somewhere between 
that which is properly called London and its envi- 
rons, and partaking in a certain measure of the 
attributes of both. 

London would seem to be particularly fortunate 
in its situation, and that a large city should have 
grown up here was perhaps unavoidable: suffi- 



Bicftens' Xon&on 



253 




254 2)icftens' Xon^on 

ciently far from the open sea to be well protected 
therefrom, yet sufficiently near thereto to have early 
become a powerful city and a great port. 

Roman occupation, in spite of historians to the 
contrary, has with the later Norman leavened the 
Teutonic characteristics of the people of Britain 
perhaps more than is commonly credited. Caesar's 
invasion was something more than a mere excursion, 
and his influence, at least afterward, developed the 
possibilities of the " mere collection of huts " with 
the Celtic name into the more magnificent city of 
Londinium. 

It has been doubted if Caesar really did know the 
London of the Britons, which historians have so 
assiduously tried to make a great and glorious city 
even before his time. More likely it was nothing 
of the sort, but was simply a hamlet, set down in 
a more or less likely spot, around which naturally 
gathered a slowly increasing population. 

In a way, like the Celtic hill towns of Normandy 
and Brittany, it took Roman impulse to develop 
it into anything more beautiful and influential than 
the mere stockade or sareha of the aborigine. The 
first mention of London is supposed to be in the 
works of Tacitus, a century and a half after Caesar's 
invasion. From this it would appear that by the 



S)ict?ens' XonDon 255 

year 62, in the reign of Nero, Londinium was al- 
ready a place of " great importance." 

Against the Roman domination the Britons finally 
rose at the call of the outraged Boadicea, who 
marched directly upon London as the chief centre 
of power and civilization. Though why the latter 
condition should have been resented it is still diffi- 
cult to understand. Ptolemy, who, however, got 
much of his information second-hand, refers to 
London in his geography of the second century as 
Londinion, and locates it as being situate some- 
where south of the Thames. All this is fully re- 
counted in the books of reference, and is only men- 
tioned as having more than a little tO' do with the 
modern city of London, which has grown up since 
the great fire in 1666. 

As a British town it occupied a site probably co- 
extensive only with the later Billingsgate and the 
Tower on one hand, and Dowgate on the other. 
Lombard and Fenchurch Streets were its northerly 
limits, with the Wall-Brook and Sher-Bourne on 
the west. These limits, somewhat extended, formed 
the outlines of the Roman wall of the time of Theo- 
dosius (394). 

Coming to a considerably later day, a matter of 
twelve hundred years or so, it is recalled that the 
period of the great fire is the time from which the 



256 2)icftens* Xont)on 

building up of the present city dates, and from 
which all later reckoning is taken. London at that 
day (1666) was for the most part timber-built, 
and the flames swept unobstructed over an area 
very nearly approximating that formerly enclosed 
by London wall. 

The Tower escaped ; so did All-Hallows, Barking, 
Crosby Hall, and Austin Friars, but the fire was 
only checked on the west just before it reached the 
Temple Church and St. Dunstan's-in-the-West. 

He who would know London well must be a 
pedestrian. Gay, who wrote one of the most exact 
and lively pictures of the external London of his 
time, has put it thus : 

" Let others in the jolting coach confide, 
Or in a leaky boat the Thames divide, 
Or box'd within the chair, contemn the street, 
And trust their safety to another's feet : 
Still let me walk." 

Such characteristic features as are properly appli- 
cable to the Thames have been dealt with in the 
chapter devoted thereto. With other localities and 
natural features it is hardly possible to more than 
make mention of the most remarkable. 

From Tower Hill to Hampstead Heath, and from 
the heights of Sydenham to Highgate is embraced 



H)icliens' XonDon 257 

the chief of those places which are continually re- 
ferred to in the written or spoken word on London. 

The Fleet and its ditch, with their unsavoury rep- 
utations, have been filled up. The Regent's Canal, 
which enters the Thames below Wapping, winds 
its way, now above ground and occasionally beneath, 
as a sort of northern boundary of London proper. 
Of other waterways, there are none on the north, 
while on the south there are but two minor streams, 
Beverly Brook and the River Wandle, which flow 
sluggishly from the Surrey downs into the Thames 
near Westminster. 

As for elevations, the greatest are the four cardi- 
nal points before mentioned. 

Tower Hill, with its rather ghastly romance, is 
first and foremost in the minds of the native and 
visitor alike. This particular locality has changed 
but little, if at all, since Dickens' day. The Mi- 
nories, the Mint, Trinity House, the embattled 
" Tower " itself, with the central greensward en- 
closed by iron railings, and the great warehouses 
of St. Katherine's Dock, all remain as they must 
have been for years. The only new thing which 
has come into view is the garish and insincere 
Tower Bridge, undeniably fine as to its general 
effect when viewed from a distance down-river, 
with its historic background and the busy activities 



2s8 H)icftens' Xonbon 

of the river at its feet. A sentiment which is speed- 
ily dispelled when one realizes that it is but a mere 
granite shell hung together by invisible iron girders. 
Something of the solidity of the Tower and the 
sincerity of a former day is lacking, which can but 
result in a natural contempt for the utilitarianism 
which sacrifices the true art expression in a city's 
monuments. 

Of the great breathing-places of London, Hyde 
Park ranks easily the first, with Regent's Park, the 
Green Park, St. James' Park, Battersea Park, and 
Victoria Park in the order named. The famous 
Heath of Hampstead and Richmond Park should be 
included, but they are treated of elsewhere. 

Hyde Park as an institution dates from the six- 
teenth century, and with Kensington Gardens — 
that portion which adjoins Kensington Palace — 
has undergone no great changes during the past 
hundred years. 

At Hyde Park Corner is the famous Apsley 
House presented by the nation to the Duke of Well- 
ington. At Cumberland Gate was Tyburn. The 
" Ring " near Grosvenor Gate was the scene of gal- 
lantries of the days of Charles H. ; of late it has 
been devoted to the games of gamins and street 
urchins. The Serpentine is a rather suggestively 
and incongruously named serpentine body of water, 



BicKens' Xon^on 259 

which in a way serves to give a variety to an other- 
wise somewhat monotonous prospect. 

The first Great International Exhibition was held 
in Hyde Park in 1851, and rank and fashion, in 
the mid- Victorian era, " church paraded " in a some- 
what more exclusive manner than pursued by the 
participants in the present vulgar show. The Green 
Park and St. James's Park touch each other at the 
angles and, in a way, may be considered as a part 
of one general plan, though for a fact they vary 
somewhat as to their characteristics and functions, 
though under the same " Ranger," a functionary 
whose office is one of those sinecures which under 
a long-suffering, tax-burdened public are still per- 
mitted to abound. 

The history of Regent's Park, London's other 
great open space, is brief. In 18 12, the year of 
Dickens' birth, a writer called it " one of the most 
fashionable Sunday promenades about town." It 
certainly appears to have been quite as much the 
vogue for promenading as Hyde Park, though the 
latter retained its supremacy as a driving and riding 
place. The Zoological Gardens, founded in 1826, 
here situated, possess a perennial interest for young 
and old. The principal founders were Sir Hum- 
phrey Davy and Sir Stamford Raffles. 

The rambler in old London, whether he be on 



26o H)ichens' Xon^on 

foot or in a cab, or by the more humble and not 
inconvenient " bus," will, if he be in the proper 
spirit for that edifying occupation, be duly im- 
pressed by the mile-stones with which the main 
roads are set. Along the historic " Bath Road," 
the " Great North Road," the " Portsmouth Road," 
or the " Dover Road," throughout their entire 
length, are those silent though expressive monu- 
ments to the city's greatness. 

In old coaching days the custom was perhaps 
more of a consolation than it proves to-day, and 
whether the Londoner was on pleasure bent, to the 
Derby or Epsom, or coaching it to Ipswich or 
Rochester, — as did Pickwick, — the mile-stones 
were always a cheerful link between two extremes. 

To-day their functions are no less active; the 
advent of the bicycle and the motor-car makes it 
more necessary than ever that they should be there 
to mark distance and direction. 

No more humourous aspect has ever been re- 
marked than the anecdote recounted by a nineteenth- 
century historian of the hunt of one Jedediah 
Jones for the imaginary or long since departed 
" Hicks' Hall," from which the mile-stones, crypto- 
grammatically, stated that " this stone was ten 
(nine, eight, etc.) miles from Hicks' Hall." The 
individual in question never was able to find the 



Dicftens' XonDon 261 

mythical " Hicks' Hall," nor the equally vague 
" Standard in Cornhill," the latter being referred 
to by an accommodating 'bus driver in this wise: 
"Put ye down at the 'Standard in Cornhill?' — 
that's a good one! I should like to know who ever 
seed the ' Standard in Cornhill.' Ve knows the 
' Svan wi' Two Necks ' and the ' Vite Horse ' in 
Piccadilly, but I never heerd of anybody that ever 
seed the ' Standard in Cornhill.' Ve simply reckons 
by it." 

The suburbs of London in Dickens' time were 
full of such puzzling mile-stones. As late as 183 1 
a gate existed at Tyburn turnpike, and so, as if 
marking the distinction between London and the 
country, the mile-stones read from Tyburn. 

Hyde Park Corner is still used in a similar way. 
Other stones read merely from London, but, as it 
would be difficult to know what part of London 
might best be taken to suit the purposes of the 
majority, the statement seems as vague as was 
Hicks' Hall. Why not, as a writer of the day ex- 
pressed it, measure from the G. P. O.? which to 
the stranger might prove quite as unintelligible, 
meaning in this case, however. General Post-Office. 

The population return of 1831 shows a plan with 
a circle drawn eight miles from the centre, a region 
which then comprised 1,776,000 inhabitants. By 



262 Dickens* 3Lon&on 

1 84 1 the circle was reduced to a radius of one-half, 
and the population was still as great as that con- 
tained in the larger circle of a decade before. Thus 
the history of the growth of London shows that 
its greatest activities came with the beginning of 
the Victorian era. 

By the census of 186 1, the population of the City 
— the E. C. District — was only 112,247; while 
including that with the entire metropolis, the num- 
ber was 2,803,034, or twenty-five times as great as 
the former. It may here be remarked that the non- 
resident, or, more properly, " non-sleeping " popu- 
lation of the City is becoming larger every year, 
on account oi the substitution of public buildings, 
railway stations and viaducts, and large warehouses, 
in place of ordinary dwelling-houses. Fewer and 
fewer people live in the City. In 185 1, the number 
was 127,869; it lessened by more than 15,000 be- 
tween that year and 186 1 ; while the population of 
the whole metropolis increased by as many as 440,- 
000 in the same space of time. 

In 1870, when Dickens was still living, the whole 
population was computed at 3,251,804, and the 
E. C. population was further reduced to 74,732. 

In 1901 the " City " contained only 3,900 inhab- 
ited houses, and but 27,664 persons composed the 
night population. 



DicF^ens' XonDon 263 

The territorial limits or extent of London must 
vary greatly according as to whether one refers to 
" The City," " London proper," or " Greater Lon- 
don," a phrase which is generally understood of 
the people as comprehending not only the contigu- 
ous suburbs of a city, but those residential communi- 
ties closely allied thereto, and drawing, as it were, 
their support from it. If the latter, there seems no 
reason why London might not well be thought to 
include pretty much all of Kent and Surrey, — the 
home counties lying immediately south of the 
Thames, — though in reality one very soon gets 
into green fields in this direction, and but for the 
ominous signs of the builder and the enigmatic 
references of the native to the " city " or " town," 
the stranger, at least, might think himself actually 
far from the madding throng. 

For a fact this is not so, and local life centres, 
even now, as it did in days gone by, very much 
around the happenings of the day in London itself. 

Taking it in its most restricted and confined lit- 
eral sense, a circuit of London cannot be better 
expressed than by quoting the following passage 
from an author who wrote during the early Victo- 
rian period. 

" I heard him relate that he had the curiosity 
to measure the circuit of London by a perambulation 



264 Bicftens' Xonbon 

thereof. The account he gave was to this effect: 
He set out from his house in the Strand toward 
Chelsea, and, having reached the bridge beyond the 
water works, Battersea, he directed his course to 
Marylebone, from whence, pursuing an eastern 
direction, he skirted the town and crossed the Is- 
hngton road at the * Angel.' . . . passing through 
Hoxton he got to Shoreditch, thence to Bethnal 
Green, and from thence to Stepney, where he re- 
cruited his steps with a glass of brandy. From 
Stepney he passed on to Limehouse, and took into 
his route the adjacent hamlet of Poplar, when he 
became sensible that to complete his design he must 
take in Southwark. This put him to a stand, but 
he soon determined on his course, for, taking a 
boat, he landed at the Red House at Deptford and 
made his way to Saye's Court, where the wet dock 
is, and, keeping the houses along Rotherhithe to the 
right, he got to Bermondsey, thence by the south 
end of Kent Road to Newington, and over St. 
George's Fields to Lambeth, and crossing over at 
Millbank, continued his way to Charing Cross and 
along the Strand to Norfolk Street, from whence 
he had set out. The whole excursion took him from 
nine in the morning to three in the afternoon, and, 
according to his rate of walking, he computed the 
circuit of London at about twenty miles." 



Bicftens' Xon^on 265 

Since this was written, even these areas have 
probably extended considerably, until to-day the 
circuit is more nearly fifty miles than twenty, but 
in assuming that such an itinerary of twenty miles 
covers the ground specifically mentioned, it holds 
equally true to-day that this would be a stroll which 
would exhibit most of the distinguishing features 
and characteristics of the city. 

Modes of conveyance have been improved. One 
finds the plebeian cab or " growler," the more fas- 
tidious hansom, and the popular electric tram, which 
is fast replacing the omnibus in the outlying por- 
tions, to say nothing of the underground railways 
now being " electrified," as the management put it. 

These improvements have made not only dis- 
tances seem less great, but have done much toward 
the speedy getting about from one place to another. 

It matters not how the visitor enters London; 
he is bound to be duly impressed by the immensity 
of it. In olden times the ambassador to St. James' 
was met at Dover, where he first set foot upon Eng- 
lish soil, by the Governor of the Castle and the local 
Mayor. From here he was passed on in state to 
the great cathedral city of Canterbury, sojourned 
for a space beneath the shadow of Rochester Castle, 
crossed the Medway, and finally reached Gravesend, 
reckoned the entry to the port of London. Here he 



266 ©icftens' XonDon 

was received by the Lord Mayor of London and 
the Lord Chamberlain, and " took to water in the 
royal galley-foist," or barge, when he was rowed 
toward London by the Royal Watermen, an institu- 
tion of sturdy fellows which has survived to this 
day, even appearing occasionally in their picturesque 
costumes at some river fete or function at Windsor. 

With a modern visitor it is somewhat different; 
he usually enters by one of the eight great gateways, 
London Bridge, Waterloo, Euston, Paddington, St. 
Pancras, King's Cross, Victoria or Charing Cross, 
unless by any chance he arrives by sea, which is 
seldom; the port of London, for the great ocean 
liner, is mostly a " home port," usually embarking 
or disembarking passengers at some place on the 
south or west coast, — Southampton, Plymouth, 
Liverpool, or Glasgow. 

In either case, he is ushered instantly into a great, 
seething world, unlike, in many of its features, any- 
thing elsewhere, with its seemingly inextricable 
maze of streets and bustle of carriages, omnibuses, 
and foot-passengers. 

He sees the noble dome of St. Paul's rising over 
all, possibly the massiveness of the Tower, or the 
twin towers of Westminster, of those of the " New 
Houses of Parliament," as they are still referred to. 

From the south only, however, does the traveller 



2)icl?ens' %ont)on 267 

obtain a really pleasing first impression. Here in 
crossing any one of the five central bridges he 
comes at once upon a prospect which is truly grand. 

The true pilgrim — he who visits a shrine for 
the love of its patron — is the one individual who 
gets the best of life and incidentally of travel. Lon- 
don sightseeing appeals largely to the American, 
and it is to him that most of the sights and scenes 
of the London of to-day — and for that matter, of 
the past fifty years — most appeal. In the reign 
of James L sights, of a sort, were even then patron- 
ized, presumably by the stranger. " The Lon- 
doner never goes anywhere or sees anything," as 
one has put it. In those days it cost two pence 
to ascend to the top of Old St. Paul's, and in the 
Georges' time, a penny to ascend the " Monument." 
To-day this latter treat costs three pence, which is 
probably an indication of the tendency of the times 
to raise prices. 

With many it may be said it is merely a rush 
and a scramble, " personally conducted," or other- 
wise, to get over as large a space of ground in a 
given time as legs and lungs will carry one. Wal- 
pole remarked the same sad state of affairs when he 
wrote of the Houghton visitors. 

" They come and ask what such a room is called 
. . . write it down; admire a cabbage or a lobster 



268 2)icften0* XontJon 

in a market piece (picture?) ; dispute as to whether 
the last room was green or purple, and then hurry 
to the inn for fear the fish should be overdressed." 

One who knows his London is amused at the dis- 
appointment that the visitor often feels when com- 
paring his impression of London, as it really is, with 
the London of his imagination. 

As they ride down Fleet Street they are surprised 
at the meanness of the buildings as compared with 
those which had existed in their mind's eye. This 
might not be the case were but their eyes directed 
to the right quarter. Often and often one has seen 
the stranger on a 'bus gazing at the houses in Fleet 
Street instead of looking, as he should, right ahead. 
In this way he misses the most sublime views in 
London : that of the " Highway of Letters " in its 
true relation to St. Paul's in the east and the Abbey 
in the west. 

The long dip of the street and the opposite hill 
of Ludgate give an incomparable majesty to the 
Cathedral, crowning the populous hill, soaring se- 
renely above the vista of houses, gables, chimneys, 
signals, and telegraph wires, — 

" Above the smoke and stir of this dim spot, 
Which men call town." 

Coming by one of the existing modern gateways 
the railway termini, before mentioned, the visitor 



S)icF?ens' Xonbon 269 

would be well advised to reenter London the next 
day via the " Uxbridge Road," upon an omnibus 
bound for the Bank, securing a front seat. He 
will then make his triumphal entry along five miles 
of straight roadway, flanked by magnificent streets, 
parks, and shops, until, crossing Holborn Viaduct, 
he is borne past the General Post-Ofiice, under the 
shadow of St. Paul's, and along Cheapside to the 
portico oi the Royal Exchange — the hub of the 
world. As Byron well knew, only time reveals Lon- 
don : 

'* The man who has stood on the Acropolis 

And looked down over Attica ; or he 
Who has sailed where picturesque Constantinople is, 

Or seen Timbuctoo, or hath taken tea 
In small-eyed China's crockery-ware metropolis, 

Or sat midst the bricks of Nineveh, 
May not think much of London's first appearance ; 
But ask him what he thinks of it a year hence / " 

As with society, so with certain localities of Lon- 
don; there are some features which need not be 
described; indeed they are not fit to be, and, while 
it cannot be said that Dickens ever expressed him- 
self in manner aught but proper, there are details 
of the lives and haunts of the lower classes of which 
a discussion to any extent should be reserved for 
those economic works which treat solely of social 
questions. The "Hell's Kitchens" and "Devil's 



I 



270 Dichens' Xon^on 

Furnaces," all are found in most every large city 
of Europe and America ; and it cannot be said that 
the state of affairs, with regard thereto, is in any 
way improving, though an occasional slum is blotted 
out entirely. 

Not alone from a false, or a prudish, refinement 
are these questions kept in the background, but more 
particularly are they diminished in view in order 
to confine the contents of this book to a resume of 
the facts which are the most agreeable. Even in 
those localities where there is little else but crime 
and ignorance, suffering and sorrow, there is also, 
in some measure, propriety and elegance, comfort 
and pleasure. 

If the old " Tabard " of Chaucer's day has given 
way to a garish and execrable modern " Public 
House," some of the sentiment still hangs over the 
locality, and so, too, with the riverside communities 
of Limehouse and Wapping. Sentiment as well 
as other emotions are unmistakably reminiscent, 
and the enthusiastic admirer of Dickens, none the 
less than the general lover of a historical past, will 
derive much pleasure from tracing itineraries for 
himself among the former sites and scenes of the 
time, not far gone, of which he wrote. 

Eastcheap has lost some of its old-world atmos- 
phere, and is now given over to the coster element. 



S)icftens* XonDon ^71 

Finsbury and Islington are covered with long rows 
of dull-looking houses which have existed for a 
matter of fifty or seventy-five years, with but little 
change except an occasional new shop-front and 
a new street cut through here and there. Spring 
Gardens, near Trafalgar Square, is no' longer a 
garden, and is as dull and gloomy a place as any 
flagged courtyard in a less aristocratic neighbour- 
hood. 

The old " Fleet Ditch " no longer runs its course 
across Holborn and into the Thames at Blackfriars. 
Churches, palaces, theatres, prisons, and even hos- 
pitals have, in a measure, given way tO' progressive 
change and improvement. 

Guy's Hospital, identified with letters from the 
very foundation of its patron, — one Thomas Guy, 
a bookseller of Lombard Street, — dates only from 
the eighteenth century, and has to-day changed 
little from what it was in Dickens' time, when he 
lived in near-by Lant Street, and the fictional char- 
acter of " Sawyer " gave his famous party to which 
" Mr. Pickwick " was invited. " It's near Guy's," 
said Sawyer, " and handy for me, you know." 

On the whole, London is remarkably well pre- 
served; its great aspects suffer but very little 
change, and the landmarks and monuments which 
met Dickens' gaze are sufficiently numerous and 



I 

I 



272 H)tcftens' Xonbon 

splendid to still be recognizable by any who pos- 
sess any degree of familiarity with his life and 
works. Many well-known topographical features 
are still to be found within the sound of Bow Bells 
and Westminster. Those of the Strand and Fleet 
Street, of the Borough, Bermondsey, Southwark 
southward of the river, and Bloomsbury in the 
north, form that debatable ground which is ever 
busy with hurrying feet. The street-sweeper, 
though, has mostly disappeared, and the pavements 
of Whitehall are more evenly laid than were the 
Halls of Hampton Court in Wolsey's day. 

Where streets run off from the great thorough- 
fares, they are often narrow and in a way ill kept, 
but this is due more to their confined area than to 
any carelessness or predisposition on the part of the 
authorities to ignore cleanliness. 

London possesses a series of topographical divi- 
sions peculiar to itself, when one considers the num- 
ber thereof, referring to the numerous squares 
which, in a way, correspond to the Continental place, 
platz, or plaza. It is, however, a thing quite dif- 
ferent. It may be a residential square, like Bed- 
ford, Bloomsbury, or Belgrave Squares, or, like 
Covent Garden and Lincoln's Inn Fields, given over 
to business of a certain sedate kind. These latter 



Dicftens* Xonbon 273 

two are the oldest of London squares. Or, like 
Trafalgar Square, of a frankly commercial aspect. 

On the Continent they are generally more of ar- 
chitectural pretensions than in London, and their 
functions are quite different, having more of a pub- 
lic or ceremonial character; whereas here the more 
exclusive are surrounded with the houses of the 
nobility or aristocracy, or what passes for it in these 
days ; or, as in the case of Trafalgar Square, — 
in itself of splendid architectural value, — little 
more than a point of crossing or meeting of streets, 
like Piccadilly and Oxford Circus. 

In the " City," the open spaces are of great his- 
torical association; namely, Charterhouse, Bridge- 
water, Salisbury, Gough, and Warwick Squares. 
They show very few signs of life and humanity of 
a Sunday or a holiday, but are active enough at 
other times. 

Further west are the quiet precincts of the Tem- 
ple and Lincoln's Inn Fields, one of the most an- 
cient and, on the whole, the most attractive of all, 
with its famous houses and institutions of a storied 
past. 

While, if not actually to be counted as city 
squares, they perform in no small degree many of 
their functions. 

Red Lion Square, to the north of Fleet Street, is 



274 Dickens' XonDon 

gloomy enough, and reminiscent of the old " Red 
Lion " Inn, for long " the largest and best fre- 
quented inn in Holborn," and yet more worthily, 
as being the residence of Milton after his pardon 
from King Charles. 

Soho Square and Golden Square are quiet and 
charming retreats, away from the bustle of the shop- 
pers of Regent and Oxford Streets, though perhaps 
melancholy enough to the seeker after real archi- 
tectural charm and beauty. 

It is to Bloomsbury that the heart of the Ameri- 
can most fondly turns, whether he takes residence 
there by reason of its being " so near to the British 
Museum, you know," or for motives of economy, 
either of which should be sufficient of itself, like- 
wise commendable. 

The museum itself, with its reading-room and 
collections, is the great attraction, it cannot be de- 
nied, of this section of London, and Bloomsbury 
Square, Torrington Square, Queen's Square, and 
Mecklenburgh Square, where Dickens lived and 
wrote much of " Pickwick " in 1837-39, ^^^ given 
over largely to " board-residence " establishments 
for the visitor, or he who for reasons good and true 
desires to make his abode in historic old Blooms- 
bury. 

In Dickens' time the region had become the 



Dicftens' Xon^on 275 

haunt of those who affected science, literature, or 
art, by reason of the proximity of the British Mu- 
seum and the newly founded University of London. 

The wealthy element, who were not desirous of 
being classed among the fashionables, were at- 
tracted here by its nearness to the open country 
and Regent's Park. Thus, clustering around 
Bloomsbury is a whole nucleus of squares ; " some 
comely," says a writer, " some elegant," and all 
with a middle-class air about them. 

Still further west are the aristocratic and ex- 
clusive St. James' Square, Berkley, Belgrave, Gros- 
venor, Manchester, Devonshire, and many more rect- 
angles which are still the possession of the exclusives 
and pseudo-fashionables. Their histories and their 
goings-on are lengthy chronicles, and are not within 
the purpose of this book, hence may be dismissed 
with mere mention. 

The flow of the Thames from west to east 
through the metropolis has given a general direc- 
tion to the lines of street; the principal thorough- 
fares being, in some measure, parallel to the river, 
with the inferior, or at least shorter, streets branch- 
ing from them. Intersecting the town lengthwise, 
or from east to west, are two great leading thor- 
oughfares at a short distance from each other, but 
gradually diverging at their western extremity. 



276 Dtcftens* Xon&on 

One of these routes begins in the eastern environs, 
near Blackwall, and extends along Whitechapel, 
Leadenhall Street, Cornhill, the Poultry, Cheapside, 
Newgate Street, Holborn, and Oxford Street. The 
other may be considered as starting at London 
Bridge, and passing up King William Street into 
Cheapside, at the western end of which it makes 
a bend round St. Paul's Churchyard; thence pro- 
ceeds down Ludgate Hill, along Fleet Street and 
the Strand to Charing Cross, where it sends a 
branch ofif to the left to Whitehall, and another 
diagonally to the right, up Cockspur Street; this 
leads forward into Pall Mall, and sends an offshoot 
up Waterloo Place into Piccadilly, which proceeds 
westward to Hyde Park Corner. These are the 
two main lines of the metropolis. 

Of recent years two important new thoroughfares 
have been made, viz.. New Cannon Street, extend- 
ing from London Bridge to St. Paul's Churchyard, 
and Queen Victoria Street, which, leaving the Mai^j 
sion House, crosses Cannon Street about its centre, 
and extends to Blackfriars Bridge. The third main 
route begins at the Bank, and passes through the 
City Road and the New Road to Paddington and 
Westbo'urne. The New Road here mentioned has 
been renamed in three sections, — Pentonville Road, 
from Islington to King's Cross ; Euston Road, from 



Dicftens' XonOon 277 

King's Cross to Regent's Park; and Marylebone 
Road, from Regent's Park to Paddington. The 
main cross-branches in the metropolis are Far- 
ringdon Street, leading from Blackfriars Bridge 
to Holborn, and thence to King's Cross; the Hay- 
market, leading from Cockspur Street; and Regent 
Street, running northwesterly in the direction of 
Regent's Park. Others from the north of Holborn 
are Tottenham Court Road, parallel to Gower 
Street, where the Dickenses first lived when they 
came to London. Gray's Inn Road, near which is 
Gray's Inn, where Dickens himself was employed 
as a lawyer's clerk, and Doughty Street, where, at 
No. 48, can still be seen Dickens' house, as a sign- 
board on the door announces : " Dickens lived here 
in 1837." Aldersgate, continued as Goswell Road, 
connects with Islington and Whitechapel, and Mile 
End Road leads to Essex. 

Such were the few main arteries of traffic in 
Dickens' day, and even unto the present; the com- 
plaint has been that there are not more direct thor- 
oughfares of a suitable width, both lengthwise and 
crosswise, to cope with the immense and cumber- 
some traffic of 'bus and dray, to say nothing of 
carts and cabs. 

Nothing is likely to give the stranger a just esti- 
mate of the magnitude of this more than will the 



2 78 Bicftens* Xon&on 

observance of the excellent police control of the 
cross traffic, when, in some measure, its volume will 
be apparent. 

It would perhaps be impossible in a work such as 
this that any one locality could be described with 
anything like adequate completeness. Certainly 
one would not hope to cover the ground entire, 
where every division and subdivision partakes sev- 
erally of widely different characteristics. 

Southwark and the Borough, with its High 
Street, St. George's Church and Fields, the old 
Marshalsea — or the memory of it — " The King's 
Bench " Prison, and " Guy's," are something quite 
different with respect to manners and customs from 
Whitechapel or Limehouse. 

So, too, are St. Giles' and Pimlico in the west, 
and Hampstead and Highgate in North London. 
Since all of these are dealt with elsewhere, to a 
greater or lesser degree, a few comments on the 
Whitechapel of Dickens' day must suffice here, 
and, truth to tell, it has not greatly changed since 
that time, save for a periodical cleaning up and 
broadening of the main thoroughfare. It is with 
more or less contempt and disgust that Whitechapel 
is commonly recalled to mind. Still, Whitechapel 
is neither more nor less disreputable than many 
other localities sustained by a similar strata of so- 



H)icftens' Xonbon 279 

ciety. It serves, however, to illustrate the life of 
the east end, as contrasted with that of the west of 
London — the other pole of the social sphere — 
and is, moreover, peopled by that class which Dick- 
ens, in a large measure, incorporated into the 
novels. 

In ancient times Northumberland, Throgmorton, 
and Crosby were noble names associated therewith. 
In Dickens' day butchers, it would seem, were the 
predominate species of humanity, while to-day Jew- 
ish " sweat-shops " are in the ascendant, a suffi- 
ciently fine distinction to render it recognizable to 
any dweller in a large city, whatever his nationality. 

The fleur-de-lis and royal blazonings are no 
longer seen, and such good old Anglo-Saxon names 
as Stiles, Stiggins, and Stodges are effectually ob- 
literated from shop signs. How changed this an- 
cient neighbourhood is from what it must once have 
been! Crosby Hall, in Bishopsgate Street, not far 
distant, the ci-devant palace of Richard II., is now a 
mere eating-house, albeit a very good one. And 
as for the other noble houses, they have gone the 
way of all fanes when once encroached upon by the 
demands of business progress. 

Baynard Castle, where Henry VII. received his 
ambassadors, and in which the crafty Cecil plotted 
against Lady Jane Grey, almost before the ink was 



28o 2)icftens* Xon^on 

dry with which he had solemnly registered his name 
to serve her, has long ago been numbered amongst 
the things that were. The archers of Mile-end, 
with their chains of gold, have departed : the spot 
on which the tent stood, where bluff Hal regaled 
himself after having witnessed their sports, is now 
covered with mean-looking houses : as one has said, 
" the poetry of ancient London is well-nigh dead." 

The voice of the stream is for ever hushed that 
went murmuring before the dwellings of our fore- 
fathers, along Aldgate and down Fenchurch Street, 
and past the door of Sir Thomas Gresham's house, 
in Lombard Street, until it doubled round by the 
Mansion House and emptied itself into the river. 
There is still the sound of rushing waters by the 
Steam-Packet Wharf, at London Bridge; but how 
different to the " brawling brook " of former days 
is the " evil odour " which arises from the poison- 
ous sewers of to-day. 

And to what have these old-world splendours 
given place? Splendid gin-shops, plate-glass pal- 
aces, into which squalor and misery rush and drownj 
the remembrance of their wretchedness in drows} 
and poisonous potations of an inferior quality oi 
liquor. Such splendour and squalor is the very| 
contrast which makes thinking men pause, anc 
pause again. 



H)ic!?ens* 3Lont)on 281 

The Whitechapel butcher was of the old school. 
He delighted in a blue livery, and wore his " steel " 
with as much satisfaction as a young ensign does 
his sword. He neither spurned the worsted leggins 
nor duck apron; but with bare muscular arms, and 
knife keen enough to^ sever the hamstring of a bull, 
took his stand proudly at the front of his shop, and 
looked " lovingly " on the well-fed joints above 
his head. The gutters before his door literally ran 
with blood : pass by whenever you would, there 
the crimson current constantly flowed ; and the 
smell the passenger inhaled was not that of " Ar- 
aby." A "Whitechapel bird " and a " Whitechapel 
butcher " were once synonymous phrases, used to 
denote a character the very reverse of a gentleman ; 
but, says a writer of the fifties, " in the manners 
of the latter we believe there is a great improve- 
ment, and that more than one ' knight of the cleaver ' 
who here in the daytime manufacture sheep into 
mutton chops, keeps his country house." 

The viands offered for sale augur well for the 
strength of the stomachs of the Whitechapel popu- 
lace. The sheeps' trotters look as if they had 
scarcely had time enough to kick ofif the dirt before 
they were potted; and as for the ham, it appears 
bleached, instead of salted ; and to look at the sand- 
wiches, you would think they were anything except 



282 2)icftens' XonDon 

what they are called. As for the fried fish, it re- 
sembles coarse red sand-paper; and you would 
sooner think of purchasing a penny-worth to polish 
the handle of a cricket bat or racket, than of trying 
its qualities in any other way. The " black pud- 
dings " resemble great fossil ammonites, cut up 
lengthwise. What the " faggots " are made of, 
which form such a popular dish in this neighbour- 
hood, we have yet to learn. We have heard ru- 
mours of chopped lights, liver, suet, and onions as 
being the components of these dusky dainties ; but 
he must be a daring man who would convince him- 
self by tasting: for our part, it would seem that 
there was a great mystery to be unravelled before 
the innumerable strata which form these smoking 
hillocks will ever be made known. The pork pies 
which you see in these windows contain no' such 
effeminate morsels as lean meat, but have the ap- 
pearance of good substantial bladders of lard shoved 
into a strong crust, and " done brown " in a super- 
heated oven. 

Such, crudely, is an impression of certain aspects 
of " trade " in Whitechapel, but its most character- 
istic feature outside of the innumerable hawkers 
of nearly everything under the sun, new or old, 
which can be sold at a relatively low price, is the 
famous " Rag Fair," a sort of " old clo's " mart, 



2)icftens' Xon&on 283 

whose presiding geniuses are invariably of the Jew- 
ish persuasion, either male or female. Rags which 
may have clothed the fair person of a duchess have 
here so fallen as to be fit only for dusting cloths. 
The insistent vender will assure you that they have 
been worn but " werry leetle, werry leetle, indeed. 
. . . Veil, vot of it, look at the pryshe! " 

Dank and fetid boxes and barrows, to say naught 
of the more ambitious shops, fill the Whitechapel 
Road and Petticoat Lane (now changed to Middle- 
sex Street, but some measure of the old activities 
may still be seen of a Sunday morning). 

A rummaging around will bring to light, likely 
enough, something that may once have been a court 
dress, a bridal costume, or a ball gown; a pair 
of small satin slippers, once white; a rusty crepe, 
a " topper of a manifestly early vintage, or what 
not, all may be found here. One might almost fancy 
that Pride, in some material personification, might 
indeed be found buried beneath the mass of dross, 
or having shuffled ofif its last vestiges of respecta- 
bility, its corse might at least be found to have left 
its shroud behind; and such these tattered habili- 
ments really are. Rag Fair to-day is still the great 
graveyard of Fashion; the last cemetery to which 
cast-ofif clothes are borne before they enter upon 



284 2)icl?ens' XonOon 

another state of existence, and are spirited into 
dusters and dish-clouts. 

Of all modern cities, London, perhaps more than 
any other, is justly celebrated for the number and 
variety of its suburbs. 

On the northwest are Hampstead, with its noble 
Heath reminiscent of " highwaymen and scoun- 
drels," and its charming variety of landscape scen- 
ery; and Harrow, with its famous old school, asso- 
ciated with the memory of Byron, Peel, and many 
other eminent men, to the churchyard of which 
Byron was a frequent visitor. " There is," he wrote 
to a friend in after years, " a spot in the churchyard, 
near the footpath on the brow of the hill looking 
toward Windsor, and a tomb (bearing the name of 
Peachey) under a large tree, where I used to sit 
for hours and hours when a boy." Nearly north- 
ward are Highgate, with its fringe of woods, and 
its remarkable series of ponds; Finchley, also once 
celebrated for its highwaymen, but now for its 
cemeteries; Hornsey, with its ivy-clad church, and 
its pretty winding New River ; and Barnet, with its 
great annual fair, still an institution attended largely 
by costers and horse-traders. On the northeast are 
Edmonton, with its tavern, which the readers of 
" John Gilpin " will of course never forget ; En- 
field, where the government manufactures rifles on 



Dichens* XonDon 285 

a vast scale; Waltham, notable for its ancient abbey 
church ; and Epping Forest, a boon to picnic parties 
from the east end of London. 

South of the Thames, likewise, there are many- 
pretty spots, quite distinct from those which border 
upon the river's bank. Wimbledon, with its furze- 
clad common and picturesque windmill; Mitcham, 
with its herb gardens; Norwood, a pleasant bit of 
high ground, from which a view of London from 
the south can be had; Lewisham and Bromley, 
surrounded by many pretty bits of scenery; Black- 
heath, a famous place for golf and other outdoor 
games; Eltham, where a bit of King John's palace 
is still left to view; the Grays, a string of pictur- 
esque villages on the banks of the River Cray, etc. 
Dulwich is a village about five miles south of Lon- 
don Bridge. Here Edward Alleyn, or Allen, a dis- 
tinguished actor in the reign of James L, founded 
and endowed an hospital or college, called Dulwich 
College, for the residence and support of poor per- 
sons, under certain limitations. 



THE END. 



A BRIEF CHRONOLOGY OF SOME OF THE 
MORE IMPORTANT EVENTS IN THE HIS- 
TORY OF THE CITY OF LONDON DURING 
THE LIFETIME OF CHARLES DICKENS. 

1812 Oct. 10. Present Drury Lane Theatre opened. 
1814 Nov. 29. The Times newspaper first printed by 
steam. 

1816 Vauxhall Bridge opened. 

1817 Waterloo Bridge opened. 

1818 Furnival's Inn rebuilt. 

1820 Jan. 29. George III. died. 
Cabs came in. 

1 82 1 Bank of England completed by Sir John Soane. 

1824 March 15. First pile of London Bridge driven. 
First stone of new Post-office laid. 

May 10. National Gallery first opened. 

1825 Thames Tunnel commenced. 
Toll-house at Hyde Park Corner removed. 

1828 St. Katherine Docks opened. 
Birdcage Walk made a public way. 

1829 King's College in the Strand commenced. 

New police service established by Sir Robert Peel. 

1830 June 26. George IV. died. 

Omnibuses first introduced by Shillaber; the first 

ran between Paddington and the Bank. 
Covent Garden Market rebuilt. 

1831 Hungerford Market commenced. 

The Hay Market in Pall Mall removed to Regent's 

Park. 
Exeter Hall opened. 

1834 Houses of Parliament burned down. 

1835 Duke of York's Column completed. 

,1837 William IV. died. Accession of Queen Victoria. 

Buckingham Palace first occupied. 
1838 First Royal Academy Exhibition in Tralfagar 

Square. 
1 84 1 Great Fire at the Tower of London. 
1843 Nelson Column placed in Trafalgar Square. 
1845 Hungerford Bridge opened. 

Lincoln's Inn New Hall opened by Queen Victoria. 



1847 Covent Garden Theatre opened as Italian Opera 

House. 
New House of Lords opened. 
New Portico and Hall of British Museum opened. 

1848 April 10. Great Chartist Demonstration. 

1 85 1 Great Exhibition in Hyde Park. 

1852 Nov. 18. Duke of Wellington's Funeral. 

1855 April 19. Visit of Emperor and Empress of French. 

Nov. 30. Visit of King of Sardinia. 
1858 Jan. 31. Steamship " Great Eastern " launched. 
i860 Underground Railway begun. 

1862 March 12. Mr. George Peabody, the American mer- 

chant, gives £150,000 to ameliorate the condition 
of London poor. 
May I. Second International Exhibition opened. 

1863 Jan. 10. Underground Railway opened. 

March 7. Princess Alexandra, of Denmark, enters 
London. 

1864 Jan. I. New street opened between Blackfriars* and 

London Bridge. 
Feb. 29. First block of Peabody Buildings opened 

in Spitalfields. 
April 21. Garibaldi receives the freedom of the city. 

1866 Jan. 29. Mr. Peabody adds £100,000 to his gift to 

the London poor. 
May 10. Black Friday, commercial panic. 
July 24. Riots in Hyde Park. 
Sept. I. Cannon Street Railway Station opened. 

1867 Jan. 15. Severe frost; forty lives lost by the break- 

ing of the ice in Regent's Park. 
June 3. First stone of Holborn Viaduct laid. 

1868 May 13. The Queen lays foundation of St. Thomas' 

Hospital. 
Dec. 5. George Peabody gives another £100,000 
to the poor of London. 

1869 July 23. Statue of George Peabody unveiled by the 

Prince of Wales. 
Nov. 6. Openine of Holborn Viaduct by the Queen. 

1870 July 13. Open in 9f of the Victoria Embankment by 

the Prince of Wales. 



Unbcx 



Addison, 39, 211. 

Adelphi Arches, 100, lOi, 170. 

Adelphi Terrace, 170. 

Adelphi, The, 171. 

" Advertiser, The," 65. 

" A la mode beef shops," 201. 

"All the Year Round," 52, 53, 

54. 55- 
Almanac Day, 187. 
Alsatia, 29. 

Alsatia, The Squire of, 70. 
America, Dickens' first visit to, 

49, 55 ; Dickens' second visit 

to, 54, 55, 89. 
American Notes, 50. 
Anderton's Hotel, 62. 
Apothecaries Company, The, 

184. 
Apsley House, 130. 
Athenaeum Club, 77. 
"Athenaeum, The," 65. 
Australia, 55. 

Bacon, Lord, 36. 

"Bag of Nails, The," 121. 

Bank of England, 113, 235. 

Barbican, The, 211. 

"Barnaby Rudge," 40, 41, 48, 

81, 94, 107. 
Barnard (Fred), 80. 
Barnard's Inn, 37, 107. 
Barrow, Mrs., 89. 
Barry, Sir John, 137. 
Bath Road, The, 260. 



" Battle of Life, The," 94. 

Baynard Castle, 279. 

Bayswater, 135. 

Beaconsfield (Earl of), 215. 

Bedford, Earl of, 208. 

Beer and ale in London, 210. 

Belfast, Dickens' visit to, 58. 

Belgrave Square, 131. 

Belgravia, 15, 122. 

" Bell's Life in London," 47, 65. 

" Bell " Tavern, 39. 

Bell Yard, 62. 

Bentley's Magazine, 26, 49. 

Berger, Francesco, 91. 

Berger, Rev. A. H., M. A., 89. 

Besant, Sir Walter, 163. 

Betterton, 71. 

" Big Ben," 227. 

Billingsgate, 172. 

Bishop's Court, 108. 

Bishopsgate Street, 279. 

Bismarck, 95. 

"Black Bull, The," 123. 

Blackfriars Bridge, 176, 220. 

Blackwall, 179. 

Blanchard, 14, 57, 63. 

" Bleak House," 53, 57, 86, 87, 

95, 104, 114, 15s, 240. 
Bloomsbury, 100. 
Bloomsbury Square, 275. 
" Blue Boar, The," 44. 
Boabdil, Captain, 89, 191. 
" Bobby," The London {see 

Policemen), 243. 



289 



290 



•ffn&ei 



Bohn's Library, 84. 

Bolt Court, 25, 28, 62. 

Boro' (Borough), The, 42. 

Boston Bantam, The, 89. 

Boston, Dickens' visit to, 58. 

Boswell, 29. 

Boulogne, 155, 158. 

Boulogne, summers in, 55. 

Bouverie Street, 28, 29, 66. 

" Bow Bells," 272. 

" Boy at the Nore, The," 163. 

Boythorne, 95. 

" Boz," 87, 93. 

"Boz" Club, list of members 

who knew Dickens personally, 

90, 115. 
"Boz," first sketch, 80. 
Bradbury and Evans, 56. 
Brewers in London, 244. 
Brick Court, 33. 
Bridge water Square, 120. 
Brig Place, 114, 174. 
Brighton, 155. 
British Museum, 79, 182, 183, 

227-229. 
Broadstairs, 55, 86, 141, 155, 157, 

180. 
Brown, Hablot K. {j^<f "Phiz"), 

82, 86, 93. 
Brownrigg, Mrs., 69. 
Brunei, Sir I. K., 169. 
Brunton, H. W., 80. 
Budden, Major, 144. 
"Bull and Mouth, The," 124. 
"Bull Inn, The," 40, 116, 139. 
Burke and M'Dougal, 238. 
Buss (engraver), 85. 
Byron on London, 269. 

Cabs and coaches in London, 

214. 
Caine, Hall, Jr., 53. 
Canning, 69. 
Cannon Street, 121. 
Canterbury, 180. 
Canterbury, Archbishop of, 166. 
Canterbury pilgrims, 141. 
Carlyle (Thomas), 39, 56, 76, 96. 



Carmelite Street, 69. 

Cattermole, George, 94. 

Cave, 71. 

Cecil Hotel, The, 200. 

Chalk, lodgings at, 37, 141. 

Chancery, Inns of, 38. 

Chancery Lane, 29, 62, 104, 105, 
106. 

Chandos Street, 104. 

Chapman and Hall, 56, 86, 93, 
96. 

Chapman, Frederick {see Chap- 
man and Hall), 82. 

Charing Cross railway bridge, 
loi, 167. 

Charing Cross railway station, 
12,45. 

Charles I., portrait by Van Dyke, 

36- 
Charles II., 258. 
Chatham Dock Yard, 141. 
Chatterton, 38, 21 1. 
Chaucer, 40, 68, 231. 
Cheapside, 269. 
Cheeryble Bros., 119. 
Chelsea, 39, 135. 
Chelsea Hospital, 215. 
" Cheshire Cheese, The," 28, 201. 
Chess rooms, 203. 
Chichester rents, 108. 
" C h i c k s e y. Veneering, and 

Stobbles," 113. 
Child's banking house, 67, 1 29. 
Child's Dream of a Star, The, 

52- 
"Child's History of England, 

The," 53, 80. 
"Chimes, The," 51, 56, 81, 105. 
Chivery, Mrs., 112. 
Chop-houses, 201. 
"Christmas Carol, A," 14, 51, 

94. 
Christmas Stories, 51. 

The Chimes, 51, 56, J81, 

150. 

Cricket on the Hearth, 51. 

Battle of Life, 51. 

The Haunted Man, 51. 



fndex 



291 



Chronology of London events, 

286. 
Church St., Westminster, 103, 

164. 
" Cigar divans," 203. 
City Companies, The, 184, 219. 
City eating-houses, 202. 
City guilds, 184. 
"City, The," 15. 
City and county of London, 249. 
Clare Market, 42, 105, 126. 
Claridge's Hotel, 200. 
Clement's Inn, 37. 
Clerkenwell, 135. 
Clifford's Inn, 19, 107, 124. 
Cloisterham, 151, 152. 
Clubs. 

Brookes', 191. 

White's, 191. 

Athenaeum, 191. 

Carleton, 191. 

Conservative, 191. 

Reform, 191. 

University, 191. 
Cobham, 89. 
Coffee-houses, 202, 203. 
Coffee-stalls, 204. 
Coke, Lord Chief Justice, 38. 
Cold Bath Fields prison, 241. 
Collins, Wilkie, 14, 76, 91. 
Concert rooms. 

Exeter Hall, 195. 

St. James' Hall, 195. 

Floral Hall, 193, 195. 

Willis' Rooms, 195. 

The Queen's Concert 
Rooms, 195. 

Egyptian Hall, 196. 

The Gallery of Illustrations, 
196. 

The Sacred Harmonic 
Society, 195. 

The Philharmonic Society, 

195. 

Cook's Court (see Took's Court). 

Copperfield and Steerforth, 100. 

" Copperfield, David," 22, 24, 25, 

46, 51, 80, 82, 83, 100, lOI, 



103, 104, III, 112, 140, 164, 
170, 171, 242, 244. 

Copyright act, 187. 

Corporation of the City of Lon- 
don, 243. 

Covent Garden, 208. 

Cowley (Abraham), 62. 

Cowper, 39. 

Crane Court, 62. 

Craven St. (Charing Cross), 14, 
104. 

" Cricket on the Hearth, The," 
94. 

Cripple's dancing academy, 112. 

Crook's rag and bottle shop, 108. 

Crosby Hall, 279. 

" Crowquill," 94. 

Cruikshank, George, 14, 80, 93, 
126. 

Crystal Palace, The, 229. 

Cuttle, Captain, 94, 114, 175. 

Daily News, under Dickens' edi- 
torship, 51, 88. 
Davenant, Lady, 72. 
Davy, Sir Humphrey, 259. 
De Cerjet, M., 147. 
De Foe, 30. 
De Lacy, Henry, 36. 
De Worde, Wynken, 28. 
Devonshire Terrace, house in, 

54- 
Dickens, Charles, the Senior, 20. 
Clerkship in Navy Pay 

Office, 21, 242. 
Home at Portsea, 20. 
Home at Chatham, 20. 
Home at Camdentown, zi- 
Home at Gower St., 21. 
Home at Lant St., 21. 
Imprisonment in Marshal- 
sea, 21. 
Dickens Fellowship, The, 78, 

79. 88. 
Dickens, Georgina, 87. 
Dickens, Henry K. C, 115. 
" Dinner at Poplar Walk, A," 25. 
Disraeli (Benjamin), 215. 



292 



Index 



District r^lway, 125. 
Doctor's Commons, 112. 
Dolby, George, 50, 89. 
"Dombey and Son," 51, 52, 81, 

113, 240. 
Dorset, Countess of, 62. 
Dorset House, 71. 
Doughty Street, house in, 54. 
Dover, 155, 158. 
Dover Road, The, 139, 141. 
Doyle, Dicky, 94. 
Drayton, Michael, 62. 
Drury Lane Court, 115. 
Dryden, 68, 72. 
Dublin, visit to, 58. 
Duck Lane, 121. 
Duke Street, 120. 
Dulwich College, 285. 
Dyce, 14. 
Dyce and Forster collection, 79. 

Eastcheap, 231. 

Eastgate House, 150. 

E. C, meaning of, 15, 262. 

Edinburgh Review, The, 74. 

Edmonton (John Gilpin of), 284. 

Edward III., 185. 

" Edwin Drood," 53, 96, 140, 149, 

151. 
Elgin marbles, 183. 
Eliot, George, 73, 76. 
Elizabeth, Queen, 62. 
Epping Forest, 41, 285. 
Epsom Derby, 260. 
Essex coast, 180. 
Essex Stairs, 165. 
Evening Chronicle, The, 47. 
" Every Man in His Humour," 

191. 
Exhibition of the works of the 

English humourists, 79. 

Fagin (Fagan), 21. 
Falcon Court, 62. 
Falkland, Viscount, 62. 
" FalstafE Inn, The," 143. 
Favre, Jules, 95. 
Felton, Professor, 87. 



Fenchurch Street, 113. 

Fenton's Hotel, 200. 

Fetter Lane, 29, 62. 

Fildes, Luke, 90, 94. 

Fire of London, 177, 250, 255. 

Fitzgerald, Percy, 53, 77, 90. 

Fitzgerald, Percy (Mrs.), 80. 

Fleet Ditch, 61, 271. 

Fleet marriages, 26, 61. 

Fleet Prison, 26, 61, 176, 241. 

Fleet Street, 18, 25, 26, 27, 61, 

63, 70, 100, 126, 202. 
Fleet Street, old booksellers and 
printers of. 

Wynken de Worde, 66. 

Jacob Robinson, 67. 

Lawton Gulliver, 67. 

Edmund Curll, 67. 

Bernard Lin tot, 67. 

W. Copeland, 67. 

Butterworth, 66. 

Richard Tottel, 66. 

Rastell, 66. 

Richard Pynson, 66. 

J. Robinson, 67. 

T. White, 67. 

H. Lowndes, 67. 

J. Murray, 67. 
Fleet Street, taverns and coffee- 
houses. 

" The Bolt-in Inn," 68. 

" The Devil," 68. 

" The King's Head," 68. 

" The Mitre," 68. 

"The Cock," 68, 71. 

" The Rainbow," 68. 

" Nando's," 68. 

" Dick's," 68. 

« Peele's," 68. 

"The Horn Tavern," 68. 
Flite, Miss, Garden of, 105. 
Floral Hall, 209. 
Flower-de-Luce Court, 68. 
Forster and Dyce collection, 79. 
Forster, John, 14, 56, 57, 82, 86, 
114. 

House in Lincoln's Inn 
Fields, 19, 105, 223. 



•ffn^ei 



293 



Fountain Court, 100. 
Fountain Inn, 42. 
Fox, 14. 

Frith, W. P., 89. 
" Frozen Deep, The," 91, 191. 
Furnival's Inn, 13, 31, 124, 129. 
Furnival's Imi, Dickens' lodg- 
ings in, 26. 

" Gad's Hill Gasper, The," 89. 
Gad's Hill Place, 141, 142, 143, 

180. 
Gaiety Theatre, The, 19. 
Gainsborough (Thomas), 39. 
" Gallery of Illustration, The," 

191. 
Gamp, Mrs., 124. 
Gaskell, Mrs., 52. 
Gay's " Trivia," 233. 
General post-office, The, 261. 
" Gentleman's Magazine, The," 

63, 74- 
George III., 183. 
George IV., 183. 
" George and Vulture, The," 44, 

106. 
George Street, 120. 
" George Tavern, The " (Bou- 

verie Street), 70. 
Gersterhauer, J. G., 89. 
Gibson (Charles Dana), 80. 
Gilray, 245. 
Globe Theatre, 19, 65. 
" Goat and Compasses, The," 

121. 
"Golden Cross, The," 44, 45, 

100, 139, 199. 
Golden Square, 274. 
Goldsmith, 29, 30, 33, 38. 
Goldsmiths' Company, The, 184, 

187. 
Goldsmiths' Hall, 186. 
Gondola, The, of London, 214. 
"Good Words" offices, 19, 247. 
" Goose and Gridiron, The," 124. 
Gordon rioters, 177. 
Gothic revival, 137. 
Gough Square, 28. 



Gower Street (north), no. 
Gravesend, 179. 
Gray's Inn, 30. 

Gray's Inn, Dickens' clerkship 
in, 23. 

The Hall, 36. 
Gray's Inn, Mr. Perker's Cham- 
bers, 107. 
" Great Boobee, The," 232. 
Greater London, 249, 264. 
Great Exhibition, The, 229. 
"Great Expectations," 53, 150. 
" Great International Walking 

Match, The," 89. 
" Great North Road, The," 260. 
Green Park, The, 130. 
Greenwich, 179. 

The Fair, 173. 

Fish dinners at, 173. 
Greenwich, Dickens' dinner at, 56. 
Gresham, Sir Thomas, 280. 
" Grevvgious, Mr.," 108. 
Grey, Lady Jane, 279. 
Grey, Sir Richard, 70. 
Grosvenor Square, 16. 
Grub Street, 15, 60, 122. 
Guildhall. The, 218. 

The Museum, 124. 
Guild of Fishmongers, The, 172. 
Guilds of the City of London. 

Merchant Tailors, 185. 

Mercers, 185. 

Grocers, 185. 

Drapers, 185. 

Fishmongers, 185. 

Haberdashers, 185. 

Salters, 185. 

Ironmongers, 185. 

Goldsmiths, 185. 

Skinners, 185. 

Vintners, 185. 

Cloth workers, etc., 185. 
Guy's Hospital, 112, 204. 
Guy, Thomas (see Guy's Hospi- 
tal), 271. 

Hammersmith, 161. 
Hampstead, 211. 



294 



iTn^ei 



Hampstead Heath, 14, 43, 229, 

284. 
Hampton Court, 272. 
" Hard Times," 53, 96. 
Harley, J. P., 82. 
Harrow, 284. 

" Haunted House, The," 53. 
Hawkins, Anthony Hope, 28. 
Hawkins, Rev. E. C, 28. 
Hawthorne, Nathaniel. 

Description of Staple Inn, 

37' ^33- 

Haxall's Hotel, 199. 

Heep (Uriah), 119. 

Henley regatta, 188. 

Henry II., 185. 

Hicks' Hall, 260. 

Higham, 146. 

High Holborn, 108. 

High Street (Southwark), 110. 

"Highway of Letters, The," 15, 
17, 60, 66, 268. 

Hogarth, 245. 

Hogarth, Catherine, 31. 

Hogarth, Mary, 86. 

Hogarth's " Marriage <} ia Mode" 
178. 

Holborn, 30, 106, 211. 

Holborn bars, 107, 108. 

Holborn Court, 107. 

Holborn Hill, 123. 

Holborn Viaducts, 43, 108, 123, 
222. 

Holywell Street, 125, 126. 

Hood, Tom, 49, 76, 163. 

Hook, Theodore, 76, 93. 

Hooper, Bishop, 62. 

" Horn Tavern, The," 62. 

Horsemonger Lane (Southwark), 
112. 

Hotels of various types, 200. 

" Houghton Visitors, The," 267., 

Hounslow Heath, 234. 

House of Commons, Press Gal- 
lery, 23. 

Old buildings burned (1843), 

23- 
New buildings begun, 23. 



Charles Dickens' engage- 
ment in the Reporters* 
Gallery, 24. 
Description of, 215. 
House of Peers, 224. 
Houses of entertainment, 40. 
Houses of Parliament, 223, 224, 

267. 
" Household Words," 52, 53, 55, 

87, 90, 91, 116, 147, 158, 176. 
Huffman, John, 175. 
Hughson's " Walks in London," 

69. 
Hungerford Bridge, loi, 168, 169. 
Hungerford Market, 12, 30, 44, 

loi, 168. 
Hungerford Stairs, 12, 168. 
Hunt, Leigh, 76, 93, 95, 201. 
Hyde Park, 130, 131, 196. 
Hyde Park Corner, 234, 258, 

261. 

"Illustrated London News, 

The," 63. 
Inner Temple, 31. 

The Hall, 33. 

Temple Church, 33. 
Inns of Chancery, 38. 
Inns of Court, 107. 

Benchers and barristers, 34. 

Benchers' dinner, 35. 
International exhibition, 196, 

259- 
Ironmongers' Hall, 186. 
Irving, Sir Henry, 193. 
" Is She His Wife," 48. 
Italian travels, 55 ; return from, 

56. 

James I., 31. 

Jarley's Waxworks, Mrs., 196. 

" Jasper's Secret," 96. 

Jellyby, Mrs., 106. 

Jerrold (Douglas), 14, 63, 83. 

John, King, Palace at Eltham.j 

285. 
Johnson's Court, 13, 25. 
Johnson, Doctor, 15, 25, 60. 



Hn^cx 



295 



Walk down Fleet St., 18. 

Dictionary, 28. 

and Boswell, 29. 
Jones, Inigo, 36, 136, 208. 
Jonson, Ben, 191. 
" Jo's Crossing," 106. 

Kean, Charles, 194. 

Kensington, 135, 211. 

Kent, County of, 139. 

Kentish rebels. The, 109. 

King's Bench Prison, 109. 

King's Cross, 234. 

" King's Head Inn, The " (Chig- 

well), 41. 
" King's Head, The " (South- 

wark), 113. 
" King's Library, The," 79. 
Kingsley (Charles), 73. 
Knight, Charles, 30, 202. 
Knighten Guild, 184. 
Knights Templars, 31, 33. 

Lad Lane, 234. 

Lady Guide Association, The, 

"5 
Landor (W. S.), 55, 95. 
Landseer, Edwin, 57, 94. 
Lant Street, no, 112, 178, 204. 
Lawrence, Samuel, 89. 
"Leather Bottle, The" (Cob- 
ham), 89, 144, 145. 
Leech (John), 80, 94. 
Lemon, Mark, 14, 82, 191. 
Leslie, C. R. (R.A.), 89, 191. 
Lever, Charles, 53, 83. 
Lewis, E. G., 89. 
Limehouse, 175. 
Limehouse Church, 114. 
Limehouse Hole, 114. 
Limehouse Reach, 114. 
Limner's Hotel, 200. 
Lincoln's Inn, 30, 31. 

Dickens' clerkship in solici- 
tor's office there, 22. 

New hall and library, 36. 

Chapel, 36. 



Lincoln's Inn Fields, 19, 100, 

106, 126. 
Linkman, trade of the, 122. 
" Literary Gazette, The," 65. 
"Little Dorrit," 53, 95, no, m, 

242. 
" Little Wooden Midshipman, 

The," 81, 113. 
Lombard Street, 280. 
London Bridge, 124, 176, 178, 

280. 
London Bridge (old), 41, 166. 
London General Omnibus Co., 

213. 
London Stone, r8o. 
Lord Mayor's Day, 217. 
Lord Mayor's procession, route 

of, 218-222. 
Lovelace, 28. 

Ludgate Hill, 61, 176, 223. 
Lytton, Lord, 53. 

Maclise (David), 14, 55, 57, 82, 

87, 94, 224. 
Macready, 86. 
Macready (Mrs.), 87. 
Macrone (John), 47. 
" Magpie and Stump," The, 42, 

44. 
Main thoroughfares of London, 

276, 277. 
" Man of Ross," The, 89. 
Mansion House, The, 280. 
Markets of London. 

Covent Garden, 205, 207. 
Smithfield, 205, 207. 
Billingsgate, 205. 
Leaden hall, 207. 
Farringdon, 209. 
Borough, 209. 
Portman, 209. 
Spitalfields, 209. 
Marley's ghost, 14, 104. 
Marshalsea Prison, 13, 61, 81, 
loi, 102, 109, III, 175, 178, 
204, 242. 
"Martin Chuzzlewit," 50, 51, 56, 
85, 140. 



296 



fn^ei 



Martin (Dr. Benj. S.), 102. 

" Marquis of Granby," The, 44. 

" Master Humphrey's Clock," 

48, 55, 85, lOI. 
Mayfair, 15, 122, 131. 
Maypole Iifli, The, 40, 41. 
Meadows, Kenney, 94. 
Mecklenburgh Square, 274. 
Medway, The, 140, 180. 
Memorial Hall, 78. 
Merchant Tailors' Hall, 186. 
Metropolitan Railway, 125. 
Micawbers, The, 43. 
Middlesex Street, 283. 
Middle Temple, 31. 

The Hall, 35. 
Milestones in London, 260. 
Millais, Sir John (A. R. A.), 89. 
Milton (John), 211, 274. 
Milton Street, 122. 
Mincing Lane, 113. 
Minories, The, 42, 81. 
" Mirror of Parliament, The," 

224. 
Misnar, the Sultan of India, 142. 
Mitre Court, 29, 62, 70. 
" Mitre Tavern, The," 70. 
Montague House, 183. 
Monthly Magazine, The, 13, 25, 

47- 
Monument, The, 177, 267. 
Morley's Hotel, 199. 
" Morning Chronicle, The," 64, 

223, 224. 
Most Worshipful Company of 

Watermen, The, 166. 
" Mr. Minns and His Cousin," 

25. 
"Mr. Nightingale's Diary," 191. 
" Mugby Junction," 53. 
Music Halls, 197. 

Nash (the poet), 62. 
National Gallery, The, 46. 
Nelson Monument, 46. 
" New Inn, The," 37, 42. 
Newgate Prison, 61, 81, 177, 241. 
Newspaper Row, 64. 



New York, Visit to, 58. 

" Nicholas Nickleby," 48, 85, 86, 

lOI. 

Nightingale Lane, 184. 
No Popery Rioters, 43, 48. 
" Nobody's Fault," 53. 
Norie and Wilson, 81. 
Northumberland Avenue, 130. 
Northumberland House, 46, 130. 
Norwood, 285. 

Ogilvie and Johnson, 71. 

" Old and New London," 248. 

Old Bailey, The, 176. 

" Old Curiosity Shop, The," 48, 

94. 105. 

Site of, 126. 
"Old Ship" Tavern, The, 108. 
"Old White Horse Inn, The," 

102. 
"Oliver Twist," 26, 42, 48, 80, 

85. 
Omnibus, The first, 212. 
Osgood, James Ripley, 89. 
" Othello," a travesty, 80. 
Otway, 211. 
"Our Mutual Friend," 53, 94, 

113- 
" Our Watering Place" {see 

Broadstairs), 157. 
Oxford Circus, 214, 273. 
Oxford University Press, 77. 

Pailthorpe (F. W.), 80, 95. 

Palace Gate, 166. 

Pamela, 72. 

Pamphilon's Coffee-house, 203. 

Pannizi, Librarian, 228. 

Paper Buildings, 33. 

Paris, Three months in, 55. 

Park Lane, 15, 131. 

Parks of London. 

See Hyde Park, 258. 

Regent's Park, 259. 

St. James' Park, 259. 

Battersea Park, 258. 

Hampstead Heath, 258. 

Richmond Park, 258. 



fnC)ex 



297 



Victoria Park, 258. 
Green Park, 259. 
Parliament Houses, 103, 137, 

163. 
Parlour Library of Fiction, The, 

84. 
Peel, Sir Robert, 242, 243. 
Peggotty, 103. 

Home at Yarmouth, 102. 
" Pendennis," 83. 
Penn, William, 62. 
Pepys, 39. 

Petticoat Lane, 283. 
Philharmonic Hall (Liverpool), 

191. 
Philosophical Institution of Edin- 
burgh, 81. 
"Phiz" (j-^^ Brown, Hablot K.), 

14, 80, 89, 92, 93. 
Piccadilly, 202. 
Piccadilly Circus, 273. 
Pickwick and Jingle, 100. 
Pickwick, Moses (of Bath), 81. 
Pickwick, Mr., 42. 
Pickwick Papers, Unpublished 

page of, 80. 
" Pickwick Papers, The," 24, 25, 

31, 48, 74, 81, 82, 85, 101, 107, 

116, 117, 118, 140, 141, 161, 

239, 271, 274. 
Pickwickian Inns, 42, 43, 44, 81. 
" Pictures from Italy," 52, 88. 
"Pilgrim's Way, The," 139. 
Pimlico, 278. 
" Poet's Corner, The," 96. 

Notables buried there, 98. 
Policemen, 243. 
Political Divisions of London, 

252. 
Pope, 67. 

Portsmouth Road, The, 260. 
Portugal Street, 106. 
Prigg, Betsy, 124. 
Prince of Wales, 33. 
Princess Louise, 33. 
Printing House Square, 64. 
Prynne, William, 62. 
" Pubsey and Co.," 113. 



" Punch," 65, 70, 94. 
Putney Bridge, 161. 
Pye Corner, 70. 

Queen Anne, 103. 
Queen's Bench Prison, 61. 
"Queen's Head, The" (South- 

wark), 112. 
Quilp, 119. 

Raffles, Sir Stamford, 259. 

" Rag Fair " in Whitechapel, 282. 

Railway Hotels, 200. 

Ram Alley, 70. 

Ratcliffe Highway, The, 1 14. 

Reade, Charles, 53. 

Red Lion Square, 273. 

Redding, Cyrus, 234. 

Regent's Canal, The, 257. 

Regent's Park, 132, 136. 

Regent Street, 202. 

Rennie, John, 175. 

" Reprinted Pieces," 159. 

Restaurants and dining-rooms, 

190. 
Restoration House, 150. 
Reynolds, Sir Joshua, 161. 
Richardson (Samuel), 28, 63, 

72. 
Richmond, 39, 55, 161. 
Riverside Churches, 163. 
Rochester, 116, 140, 180. 

Cathedral and Castle, 148, 

149, 152. 
Corn Exchange, 152. 
Dickens' Tablet, 154. 
Rogers, Samuel, 82. 
Roman Occupation of London, 

254. 
Royal Academy, The, 94. 
Royal Exchange, 202, 269. 

Sackville, 27. 
Sala, G. A., 133. 
Salisbury Court, 62, 71. 
Salisbury House, 71. 
Salisbury Square, 28, 71. 
Sandford, 71. 



298 



ITnDei 



Saracen's Head (Snow Hill), 43. 

Savage Club, The, 170. 

Savage, Richard, 62. 

" Savoy " Hotel, The, 200. 

Sawyer, Bob, 112. 

Scheffer, Ary, 89. 

Scott (Sir Walter), 73, 74. 

Sergeant's Inn, 37. 

Serpentine, The, 258. 

Seven Dials, 233. 

" Seven Poor Travellers, The," 

53- 
Seymour, 75, 80, 92. 

Shadwell, 72. 

Shillaber, Inventor of the Omni- 
bus, 212. 

Shoe Lane, 38, 62. 

Shoreditch, 264. 

Simpson's Divan Tavern, 201. 

" Six Jolly Fellowship Porters, 
The," 115. 

"Sketches by Boz" (see Boz), 
25, 47, 48, 107. 

Skimpole (Harold), 95, 236. 

Sloane, Sir Hans, 183. 

Smirke, Sir Robert, 183, 228. 

Smith, Sydney, 86. 

Snow Hill, 121. 

Society of Arts, The, 39. 

Soho Square, 274. 

"Sol's Arms," 108. 

Somerset House, 26, 134. 

Southey, 69. 

Southwark, 40, 109, 278. 
High Street, 41. 
Hist. Antiq. of, no. 
St. George's Church, 1 10, 
112. 

Southwark Bridge, 177. 

" Spaniards Inn, The," 14, 43. 

" Spectator, The," 65. 

Spring Gardens, 271. 

"Spur, The" (Southwark), 112. 

Squares of London, 273-275. 

St. Bartholomew-the-Less, 115. 

St. Bride's Church, 17, 27, 63. 

St. Clement's Danes, 17. 

St. Cyr, Marshal de, 216. 



St. Dunstans-in-the-West, 17, 62, 

"5- 
St. George's Church, Southwark, 

no, 112. 
St. George's Fields, 204. 
St. George's Street, 113, 175. 
St. Giles', 17, 278. 
St. James' Coffee House, 200. 
St. James' Park, 130. 
St. James' Theatre, The, 191. 
St. John's Church, Westminster, 

103. 
St. John's Wood, 132. 
St. Katherine's Dock, 257. 
St. Margaret's Church, 164. 
St. Martins-in-the-Fields, 46, 247. 
St. Mary Axe, 113. 
St. Mary's-le-Strand, 17. 
St. Michael's Alley, 106. 
St. Pancras, 235. 
St. Paul's Cathedral, 113, 125, 

134, 136, 163, 2c8, 212, 215, 

235, 266, 268. 
St. Stephen's Hall, 24. 
Stael, Mme. de, 135. 
Stafford House, 130. 
" Standard, The " (newspaper), 

65. 
" Standard, in Cornhill, The," 

261. 
Stanfield, 14, 94. 
Staple Inn, 37, 38, 107, 108. 
" Star and Garter, The " (Rich- 
mond), 188. 
Stationers' Company, The, 184. 
Stationers' Hall, 184, 186. 
Steele, 39. 

Steele's "Tatler," 201. 
Sterne, Laurence, 178. 
Steyne, Lord, 78. 
Stone (Marcus), 80, 90, 94. . 
Strand, The, 126, 131, 135, 165, 

202. 
Strand Improvement Scheme, 

223. 
" Strange Gentleman, The," 48 
Stratford and Bow, 214. 
Streets of London, 248. 



fn&ex 



299 



Strood, 140, 181. 

Strypes' Court, 121. 

Suburban London, 39. 

" Sultan of India, The," 47. 

" Sun " Inn, The (Canterbury), 

43- 
Surrey Downs, 257. 
Surrey Hills, The, 133. 
" Swan with Two Necks, The," 

261. 
Switzerland revisited, 55. 
Swiveller (Dick), 119. 
Sydenham, 229. 
Sykes (Bill), 236, 240. 

Tabard Inn, The, 40, 41, 270. 

Taine, H., 134. 

"Talbot, The," 41. 

" Tale of Two Cities, A," 53, 80, 

96, 107. 
Taverns, see also under individual 

names, 40. 
Tea-gardens of London, 188. 
Temple, The, 29, 30, 100. 

Temple Church, 33. 

Temple Gardens, 33. 
Temple Bar, 61, 64, 128. 
Temple Gardens, 176. 
Tenniel, Sir John, 94, 191. 
Tennyson, Alfred, 135. 
Tessyman (bookbinder), 126. 
Thackeray, 39, 74, 75- 76, 77, 82, 

126. 
Thames Bridges, in London, 166. 
Thames, The River, 160. 

Westminster to the Tower, 
163. 
Thames Valley, The, 133. 
Thames Watermen, 162. 
Thavie's Inn, 31, 37, 106. 
Theatres in London. 

Her Majesty's, 191. 

The Theatre Royal, Drury 
Lane, 192. 

The Haymarket Theatre, 
192. 

The Adelphi, 192, 193, 194. 

The Lyceum, 193. 



The St. James' Theatre, 
192, 194. 

Covent Garden Theatre, 
192. 

Royal Italian Opera House, 
192. 

Floral Hall, 193. 

The Strand Theatre, 194. 

The Olympic, 194. 

The " New Globe " Theatre, 
194. 

The Gaiety, 194. 

The Vaudeville, 194. 

The Court Theatre, 194. 

The Royalty, 194. 

The Prince of Wales, 194. 

The Tottenham Theatre, 
194. 

Sadlers' Wells Theatre, 194. 

Marylebone Theatre, 194. 

The Brittania, 194. 

The Standard, 194. 

The Pavilion, 195. 

The Surrey Theatre, 195. 

The Victoria, 195. 
Thiers, M., 216. 
Thomas' Chop-house, 106, 201. 
Thompson (James), 39. 
Tilbury Fort, 180. 
" Times, The," 63, 64. 
Took's Court, 108. 
Topography of London, 246. 
Tower Bridge, 257. 
Tower Hill, 113, 211. 
Tower, The, 175. 
Trading Companies, 184. 
Trafalgar Square, 46, 271, 273. 
" Travelling Sketches," — " Writ- 
ten on the Road," 88. 
Trinity House, 113. 
Tripe Court, 121. 
True Sun, The, 64, 224. 
Tulkinghorn's (Mrs.), 19, 57, 105, 

119, 239. 
Turner (J. M. W.), 56. 
Tussaud's, Madame, 196, 235. 
Twickenham, 55. 
Twinkleton, 151. 



300 



irnt)ci 



"Two Brewers, The," 115. 
Tyburn, 258. 
Tybumia, 132, 135. 

Ugga, Ralph, Early Map of Lon- 
don, 135. 
" Uncommercial Traveller, The," 

S3. 54. "4. 175- 
United Service Club, 77. 
Uxbridge Road, 269. 

" Vanity Fair," 74. 
Vauxhall, 230. 
Vauxhall Bridge, 104. 
Vauxhall Gardens, 189. 
Victoria Embankment, 13, 164, 

167, 172. 
Gardens, 168, 170. 
Egyptian Obelisk, 172. 
Victorian Exhibition (1897), 79. 
" Village Coquettes, The," 48, 

191. 
VilUers Street, 170. 

"Waiters in London, 201. 
Walmer Castle, 215. 
Walpole (Horace), 267. 
Waltham Abbey, 285. 
Walton, Izaak, 29. 
Warburton, 67. 
Warren's Blacking Factory, 21, 

104, 168, 170. 
Water Supply of London, 206. 
Waterloo Bridge, 175. 
Watling Street, 139. 
Watts, Richard, 153. 
Watts' Charity, 81, 152. 
Weavers' Company, The, 184. 
Weekly Times and Echo, 223. 
Wegg and Wenham, 78. 
Weller, Sam, 42, 112, 113. 
Wellington, Duke of, 130, 131, 

215, 258. 
Wellington Street, 120, 176, 211. 
West End caterers, 202. 
Westbourne Terrace, 132. 



Westminster Abbey, 155, 164, 
208. 

Dickens' Grave in, 97. 

Westminster, City of, 131. 
Bridge, 166, 167. 

Westminster Hall, 231. 

Whistler, J. McNeil, 138. 

White Bait, 174. 

"White Bait Dinner, A, at 
Greenwich," 163. 

Whitechapel, 278, 281, 282, 283. 

Whitechapel, Characteristics of, 
281, 282, 283. 

Whitehall, 104. 

Banqueting House, 136. 

" White Friars," The, 69. 

Whitefriars, 29, 62, 69. 

White Hart, The (Boro'), 42, 
44. 81. 

" White Hart Inn " (Hook), 43. 

" White Horse Cellars," 43, 44. 

" White Horse Tavern " (Ips- 
wich), 42, 44. 

William IV., 178. 

Williams, Bronsby, 42. 

Willis, Nathaniel Parker, 237. 

Will's Coffee-house, 38, 200. 

Wills, W. H., 14, 147. 

Windsor, 284. 

Wine Office Court, 28. 

Woolner, Thomas, 90. 

Woolwich, 179. 

Wordsworth, on London, 16. 
On Westminster Bridge, 
163. 

Wren, Jenny, 104. 

Wren, Sir Christopher, 31, 128, 
135- 

Yates, Edmund, 53. 

Ye Old Red Lion Inn, Incident 

in Copperfield, 22. 
York Stairs, 165. 
York Water Gate {see also York 

Stairs), 208. 

Zoological Gardens, 259. 



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